


Children of the War Book 1: The Boy from Knockturn Alley

by Dragonsmith



Series: Children of the War [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boarding School, Canon Compliant, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, Hogwarts First Year, Hufflepuff, Knockturn Alley, Next-Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 86,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8644156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonsmith/pseuds/Dragonsmith
Summary: Eleven years after the fall of Lord Voldemort, the children of the war are starting their first year at Hogwarts. Kuro, An orphaned street urchin, raised as a servant by a death-eater and abandoned on the streets in Knockturn alley, is sent to join the collection of misfits headed to Hogwarts to start their magical education.This story follows several new first-year students, including Teddy Lupin, through their first year at Hogwarts. It is meant to satisfy anyone looking for another Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in a canon sequel, particularly those of a Hufflepuff persuasion.





	1. The Boy who Survived

It was a day of celebration unparalleled in the history of magic. The Dark Lord was gone. Not just defeated, or banished, or captured, he was utterly and completely destroyed. 

A shadow that had hung over the wizarding world for over twenty years had passed. Magic folk of all kinds were hesitantly trying on the thought of Lord Voldemort being gone for good. As the sun rose, wizards that had been hiding from the wrath and power of Voldemort and his Death Eaters stepped tentatively into the light for the first time in months. Owls streaked through the sky carrying confirmation across the country that the dark times had ended. The hidden places where magic folk dwell began erupting with triumphant song. Glasses were raised high in celebration of the Dark Lord’s defeat, and of the one who slew him.

By early afternoon, revellers had taken to the streets, too jubilant to be contained indoors. They caroused through the streets, collecting stares and admonishment from the non-magical people they encountered. Those muggles hadn’t the tiniest notion of the disaster that had just been averted. Their quiet mundane lives would go on unchanged. That fact was joyous enough to bring many wizards out, shaking hands and sharing great praise of the victory, leaving a confounded trail of muggles in their wake.

By dusk, wizards of all stripes had found friends, family, and old acquaintances and were gathering for the largest celebrations in living memory. Everyone was full, at last, of hope and joy and thoughts of a bright future, all thanks to the death of Voldemort at the hands of the great Harry Potter...

Almost everyone.

Deep beneath the muggle-filled streets of London, in the deepest secret chambers within the ministry of magic, three grim figures failed to celebrate. They wrapped themselves in the shadows of the dimly lit, glassy black stone corridors for both the safety and comfort it offered. Together, they swept silently through the darkened hallways.

“There can be no doubt this time?” asked the first in the line in a whisper. She was a thin, frail, young wizard, with neatly cropped brown hair and silver-rimmed spectacles. Her eyes darted between her two seniors, as if they might have some hope to offer.

“I am sorry, young Beatrice,” croaked the eldest of the trio. His face was lopsided and sagging, scars he still carried from the first wizarding war, and he leaned heavily on a staff as he hobbled through the dark corridors. “There can be no doubt. Our Lord is dead. Utterly destroyed. We are ruined a second time by that fool child, Potter.” He spat at the name.

“What are we to do then, Master Roche?” Beatrice demanded. “Abandon all we’ve accomplished? Run and hide like rats?” Her voice echoed angrily off the polished black stone. “Now? When we’re so close to a breakthrough?”

The third broke his silence. “All that matters now is our own survival. We shall take what we have learned and pass it on. Our Lord may have fallen, but our cause still lives. We shall rise again.”

He was an immaculately kept man. He was clean shaven, tall and handsome. He carried himself with grace and confidence befitting his post as the Minister of Monster Affairs. His face, pale and unblemished, hid all emotion from his compatriots. “Now, let us wipe clean the evidence of our work, and part ways.”

“You are of course, correct, Phineas,” Roche agreed sullenly. “I had hoped that I would not have to return to hiding. I am too old for a life of exile.”

“There will always be those that will remember your contributions, Master Roche,” Phineas consoled the old wizard. “You shall not want for comfort.”

“You forget, young Phineas,” Roche growled, “I have been through this before. You will soon find your allies have forgotten all about you. Loyalty to the losing team is not highly regarded.”

They came to a halt outside one of countless unmarked doors within the labyrinthine corridors beneath the ministry. Just like every other door, this one was sealed and locked, openable only by those that knew the passphrase. Each pulled a wand from beneath their robes, pointed to a different spot on the door and chanted in unison, “Creatura!”

The solid iron door melted away and drained through the floor exposing the laboratory behind. It was a maze of beakers and benches and tubes which crisscrossed the cavernous chamber with a spiderweb of luminous liquids of every color. Lining the walls were glass jars great and small, holding a menagerie of monsters, each magically frozen in time. At the far back of the laboratory stood several large, complex and delicate looking devices holding their active experiments.

With grim determination the three strode into the room and began to dismantle the apparati, reducing the components to ash. 

“Reducto.” Master Roche exclaimed, and a dark cold ray flowed from his wand to disintegrate large glass containers holding pickled monstrosities, reducing them entirely to ash and dust. 

Beatrice had begun erasing their notes. “Atramentum vanesco,” she whispered as she tapped each scroll and tome, drawing the ink from the parchment into her wand, leaving the pages clean and blank.

Phineas strode the the darker depths of the laboratory. There stood a dozen containers surrounded by glowing crystals and etched with ancient runes, each with a web of tubes feeding into them. He surveyed their contents with great disappointment. Each one contained a malformed and misshapen monstrosity lying lifeless within. 

All except one.

He destroyed each in turn until a noise coming from the ninth apparatus stopped him. He peered through the hazy glass porthole to find something quite alive. “Roche, Beatrice, you should come here for a moment.”

The three stared at a small child that kicked and cried within the incubation chamber. It appeared in every way to be a living, newborn male human baby. He had dark brown eyes, dark, mottled skin, and a tiny wisp of hair that made it look almost like smoke was rising from his head. His slightly too large eyes wandered between them, looking for warmth and comfort and it began to cry for food.

“He survived the process,” murmured Beatrice reaching in to comfort the baby. “This changes everything!”

“This changes nothing,” scolded Master Roche. “We are still exiles. There are too many who know of our loyalties and our work. It matters not if the child survived, it will be years before he is old enough to prove whether our experiments are of any worth.”

“Quite so,” agreed Phineas, thoughtfully. “And I intend to see this through to its conclusion. I will take the child and in due time we shall see if we were truly successful.”

“Our cause is dead!” fumed Roche, his hoarse voice echoing grimly around the cavernous laboratory. “What can one boy do?”

Phineas was deathly calm. “One boy can do a great deal. Our Lord was once one boy, was he not? And wasn’t it one boy who ruined us? This child could help us rise from the ashes, but only if we allow it the chance.”

Roche calmed somewhat and fixed Phineas with a judgemental stare. “There are risks,” he warned.

“I am well aware,” interrupted Phineas, meeting the old wizard's gaze with cool confidence. “I shall be careful.”

Beatrice snickered condescendingly. “You intend to raise this child on your own, Phineas? I didn’t think you the fatherly type.”

Phineas scowled. “I am not, and have no desire to be. I am a dedicated researcher. This creature may be the first successful result of two generations worth of work. Tests must be run, information gathered.”

“You’re going to make a terrible parent,” she chided. 

“I am not its parent,” Phineas retorted. “I am merely its caretaker.”

“I could help,” she offered. 

Phineas and Roche exchanged glances, sharing something secret between them, and they both moved to put an arm over her shoulder. 

“It’s best if you don’t, child,” replied Roche, turning his wand on the young witch.

Beatrice reached to draw her own, but it was too late. 

“Immobulus!” Roche croaked. A swirl of darkness extended from his wand and bound Beatrice in place, frozen like a statue on the spot.

“What are you doing?” she managed to ask through a locked jaw.

The old wizard, holding her tight in his spell, patted her head with uncharacteristic kindness. “We’re protecting you, child,” he said. “You need not live in hiding like us. Your ties to the dark lord are not so well known. This is your reward for your service and loyalty.” 

Phineas turned to look her in the eye and placed the tip of his wand to her temple. “I’m sorry Beatrice, but it is much easier to trust that you will not expose us,” he said as he began to draw away ghostlike strands of memory from her mind. “If you do not remember us. I may also need some of your knowledge for my work. It is more valuable to me than you now.”

Two years of her life were drained from Beatrice’s mind and poured into a small coiled seashell in Phineas’ palm. When he was finished, he cast a spell to put her to sleep and said in a voice as reassuring as baying wolves, “I promise to keep them safe.”

A rustle of robes and shuffle of booted feet echoing down the corridor outside interrupted the two dark wizards. People were approaching and they were unlikely to be allies. “Take the child and begone.” hissed Roche. “I shall finish dismantling the lab.”

“I shall contact you when it is safe,” assured Phineas.

“Begone!” repeated Roche as he began to incautiously conjure a rain of devastation to burn clean all evidence of their work.

  
Phineas grabbed the child roughly from its incubator and fled from the room. He ran out into the labyrinth of corridors, away from the approaching interlopers, and into the night.


	2. Knockturn Alley

Knockturn Alley is a very unusual street occupied by very unusual people. It is barely two miles long, with one end opening into a used bookstore in Manchester, and the other into a disused public lavatory in Cardiff. It passes through Glasgow, as well as several other cities, intersecting with Diagon Alley in London twice on its way. The street is barely wide enough for two people to pass, paved with ancient cobblestone and cramped with buildings that look like they were literally dropped out of every era since romans occupied England. Mud huts, battered brick row-houses, moss-covered limestone churches, rotting wood cottages, and mangled modern monstrosities all loom over the ancient cobblestone road.  The architecture of many of the buildings is so decrepit and precarious that you might think they were held together by magic.

You would be right.

Knockturn Alley is a magical street. It is a place where lost things go. It is where unattended pens, missing cats, lost socks, and undelivered post inevitably arrive. It is the place where things that have fallen through the cracks in the world come to rest, and it has been so since before humans set foot in Britain.

The occupants of Knockturn Alley are as strange and incongruous as the street itself. They all wear long flowing robes and pointed hats. They carry wands and staves and can be seen holding conversations with animals, and people that aren’t there. Few seem to have any awareness of the invention of electricity, and fewer still of electronics. Most of them are not mad, though. They are witches and wizards; magical folk.

Knockturn Alley is not a place that anyone chooses to go. It is a place visited only by necessity. You can find almost anything in Knockturn Alley, for a price. In Borgin and Burks you can acquire a grand collection of cursed items, from wish-granting monkey paws to dream-stealing mirrors. You can find dozens of undiscovered artifacts and unpublished books in the Emporium of Unexisting Oddities. You can purchase hard-to find magical materials, poisons, curses, memories, secrets, and even murders, if you are willing to ask and ready to pay the fee.

Nobody lives in Knockturn Alley, not really. Many witches and wizards reside there, but few would call it living. Like the everything else in the alley, the denizens of the alley are those that fell through the cracks of wizarding society and found themselves with nowhere else to be. They are the poor, the lost, the mad, and the exiled.

This is where Kuro grew up.

Phineas, Kuro’s master and keeper, had once been a powerful and wealthy wizard. This fact was repeated almost nightly, in drunken tales of his lost glory. “I was a great man,” he would say. “A man of the ministry. People bowed to me. I bowed to none but the greatest, the Lord Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But it was stolen from me! They destroyed my work, stole my wealth and chased me from my home. Now the only one with the good sense to bow to me is you, a pathetic, filthy failure.”

If Kuro thought very hard, he could find memories of those better times before Knockturn. He had lived in a real house then, with a yard, and a kitchen, and a room of his own. There had been a woman there, too, that told him stories and taught him letters and numbers. That had been before the aurors had come.

In a night of fire and terror, everything had been lost. Kuro could only remember it in fleeting wisps and nightmares, for he had been very young. They seemed to come from every direction at once, erupting from the shadows, hands reaching out to capture him and take him away to Azkaban prison. He could remember the fury in his master’s curses as Phineas had drowned the house in fire and fled into the night with Kuro in tow.

The memory of the attack may have been vague and hazy, but there was another from that time which was not.

Phineas found Kuro’s tutor afterwards, alive and well. She had been the one to tell the aurors of their location. She had betrayed Phineas and Phineas did not tolerate betrayal. He brought Kuro with him that day. He wanted Kuro to understand what happened to those who crossed him. Kuro remembered the tears in her eyes, the helplessness in her pleas for mercy, and how she was looking straight at him as Phineas cast his killing curse. That last long look, as the life drained from her body and her eyes went dead haunted Kuro at night.

That was also the last time Kuro could remember Phineas smiling.

Kuro couldn’t recall exactly how they had come to Knockturn Alley from there. It seemed that they, like so many things in the alley, blew in with the fog one night, and never left.

Knockturn Alley might seem like an odd place to hide for a wizard on the run from the law, given its reputation. But there are more secret doors, false bottoms, illusory walls, and hidden chambers there than in the rest of England combined. If you are careful, you can spend your entire life in the alley and nobody will ever know that you are there.

That is how Phineas lived, hidden and secret. He had found a room between the thirteenth and fourteenth floor of a crumbling three-story walk-up for him and Kuro. It was a single creaky chamber of unfinished wood and brick with walls at odd angles and a door that only opened if asked very politely. The previous tenant, whomever that had been, had left straw mattress, and a table with a single chair. Kuro slept in the corner in a pile of rags that he managed to collect, wrapped in the discarded cloak they had found on the street.

Phineas left only in the cover of night and only a couple of times a month. As the years passed, he left less and less often, as those he went to meet were rounded up by the aurors. One-by-one they were either killed or captured and sent to Azkaban Prison.  

Nobody ever visited the room.

With Phineas trapped inside, Kuro had to find food and supplies for himself and Phineas. He had learned to beg, then to steal. The process had not been easy, though.

Phineas had never been a kind man, but his losses had made him cruel. If Kuro ever returned with too little to eat, he would go without food while Phineas dined. If he stole too much, he would be beaten for risking exposure. If he was found to have been caught stealing, spoken to anyone, to have been seen by the wrong sorts of wizards, or to have offended or disrespected his master in any way, Kuro would be forced to punish himself, with sharp objects or hot coals, or splintering rods.

The worst, though, was the wand. It was reserved for only the most egregious of mistakes. Only a few incidents had ever warranted such punishment. Only when Kuro truly risked exposing his master did he get the wand. The first had been when he had brought a stray cat home, the second was when he had accepted a coin from a wizard on Diagon Alley that Phineas believed to be an auror. The worst, though, was the day that Kuro had said Phineas’ name aloud. It had happened only once, and the punishment had been so horrible and thorough that it was certain it would never happen again.  

It wasn’t all bad, though. Unlike his master, he was free to roam. He and the alley became close partners. He knew every crack and crevice along its length. He knew which shadows he could hide in and which shadows would try to hide in him. He knew which sewer grate led to a park in Leeds, and which closet opened into the train station in Liverpool. Knockturn was his home, his shelter, and his only friend.

Kuro stole mostly from Muggles. Their money wasn’t much good for anything, but their food and wine was as good as any wizard’s and they were much easier marks. They were broadly unobservant, and were especially poor at noticing magical things. Or, rather, they were very good at ignoring things that did not make sense to them. So when a ragged child appeared from between cracks in the pavement, stole their lunch, and disappeared into a mailbox, they often decided that they had imagined the whole thing and went on with their day without a fuss.

Rarely, a muggle did see fit to chase Kuro. That was when he really had a chance to have fun. If there was one thing that Kuro could do, it was run. He was quick and nimble. He could out-climb, out-jump, and out-pace almost anyone he’d met.

  
One time, a muggle had managed to keep up with him, though. Kuro had snatched a lunch bag and its owner had turned out to be both persistent and athletic. He had cut off Kuro’s escape through a telephone booth and forced him out into the Glasgow streets. Kuro dove under benches, scrambled over fences, and scurried through gaps too small for a grown man to fit, but the man kept pace and always seemed to be one step ahead. He knew the streets like Kuro knew Knockturn. Every time Kuro thought he had escaped, he reappeared ahead of Kuro from around the next corner.

Through the fear of capture and the exhilaration of the chase, something sparked in Kuro for the first time: magic. Phineas had tried everything to pull the tiniest indication of magical talent from Kuro, from beatings to drownings to tossing him out the window. All he ever succeeded in doing was injuring the boy. But in the heat of the chase, Kuro could feel it. There was a lightness in his feet that lifted him high when he jumped, a wind at his back pushing him forward till he kept pace with the traffic, and a current in his mind that seemed to make the world slow to a crawl around him.  


He left the man in the dust and practically flew to his phone booth back to Knockturn. Once there, he held onto the magic as long as he could, bounding over rooftops, leaping from buildings and dashing up and down the street.

Kuro was made to punish himself very thoroughly that night. Phineas was pleased that his servant had finally shown some magical talent, but could not forgive the flagrant and irresponsible display of power to muggles, or drawing attention to himself in the alley.

The discovery that Kuro was, in fact, magical brought on battery of tests from Phineas who was, at his core, a scientist. Kuro knew that he was somehow one of his master’s projects from the good times, one that had failed. But the glimmer of magic brought new hope to the Master.

Phineas drew blood, cast spells, and inflicted physical trials of all sorts on Kuro, probing the secrets of his magical nature. It was painful and taxing, but it did draw out his abilities, little-by-little. He began to be able to call upon his limited power when he needed it. This made his master happy, or as happy as a man like that could be, and made Kuro a much better thief.

If they ever needed wizarding supplies, which Phineas often did for his many experiments, they needed money, wizard money. It was not wise to steal from the other residents of Knockturn; few had much of value, and they guarded what they did have fiercely. Instead, money was best acquired from the wealthy and foolish wizards of Diagon Alley.

In many ways, Diagon Alley is very similar to Knockturn. It has buildings of all sorts, with mad unstable architecture leaning in over the crowded and narrow street. It is occupied only by wizarding folk, and all of the shops there cater to them, selling brooms and cauldrons and books of spells. And it cannot be accessed by non magic folk without help, or misfortune. There is one major difference between the two, though: Gringotts.

Gringotts is the wizard bank. It is the only wizard bank in Britain. It is a glorious, tall white marble building that dominates Diagon Alley. It is an impenetrable fortress of wealth and that makes Diagon Alley the place where wizards go to store, retrieve, and most importantly, spend money.

Going to Diagon Alley was always dangerous. There were Aurors there, and often wealthy and powerful wizards who have little sympathy or patience for street rats. Fortunately, in the bustle of commerce in Diagon alley, Kuro was all but invisible.

Kuro was small, filthy, and unkempt. His clothes were tattered rags, his grimy hair was always tangled and matted. He was also a little odd looking. His nose was a bit too long, his eyes just a bit too big, and his ears just a bit too large and pointed and his skin a few shades too dark. He looked so pitiable that almost everyone preferred not to look at him and fewer still ever remembered him. It was lonely, but very useful.

Many witches and wizards are very single minded. They solve all of their problems with magic and, naturally, suppose that everyone else must do the same. Through that logic, they protect themselves and their money pouches from charms, curses, and invisible thieves. However, very few even consider the possibility that a small child might just reach into their robes and relieve them of a few galleons without the use of any magic at all. Even so, it was dangerous work. Some pouches would protect themselves viciously, and occasionally someone would even notice him being there. Begging was much safer, though less fun and profitable. Kuro spent many of his days rattling a cup with the other beggars at the intersection with Diagon Alley, hoping for a Knut or two to be tossed his way.

Kuro had lived this life for more than five years, and was around ten years old now, or there abouts. His birthday had never been clear, nor did he have a calendar to keep track of days. But knew his numbers and he was pretty certain that he was more than eight and less than twelve. He made the foolish mistake of asking his master about it one night.

“Why do you want to know that, boy?” he asked Kuro Impatiently. “Would it help you fix my dinner, or collect money, or protect us from aurors?”

“No sir.” Kuro responded apologetically as possible. It had been a foolish question and he should have known better.

“Very good,” Phineas hissed. “Remember well, you only continue to live by my goodwill. Your only purpose in your pathetic life is to serve me. Any thought of yourself is a thought wasted. Understand?”

“Yes sir.” Kuro replied.

“Good.” Phineas snapped. “Now prove your worth and find me something to drink.”

More wine was Phineas’ most common demand. Years ago, he had enjoyed the bottled sensations that were brewed in Knockturn, like bliss, or contentment, or calm. But those proved too expensive a habit and he had turned to muggle spirits to fill the void.

Kuro climbed the seventeen flights of creaking and termite-ridden stairs to the top of their three-story building, and dashed off across the roofs to find some unattended ale.

He ducked in and out of shadows along Diagon Alley, hoping to catch someone leaving the Leaky Cauldron with a fresh pint and a muddled mind. Instead he found the most depressing of scenes. A mother and father, dressed in crisp, clean, well-tailored robes were standing with their daughter in the broom shop.

“Happy Birthday Evelyn!” the father beamed as the mother pulled her hands from in front of the young girl’s eyes. “Pick any one you want!”

“A broom? My very own broom?” the girl cried with delight. “Oh this is perfect! Thank you!”

“They kept the store open just for us,” boasted the mother. “Take as long as you like. Mr. Besom will be happy to show you whatever you want.”

Kuro watched as the girl pranced around the store handling every broom she could see. She was young, probably no older than he was, but that is where the similarities stopped. She was tall, clean, and elegantly dressed. Her skin was perfectly clear and radiantly white. Her hair hung in flawless golden ringlets that are only obtained through hefty application of some of Madam Primpernelle's most expensive enchanted hair creams. She was beautiful and charming and carefree.

Kuro hated her immediately.

The more he watched her, the more he despised her. Her beaming grin, her clean hands, her coddling parents, her shiny shoes... everything about her reminded Kuro of exactly who and what he was: a servant, an experiment, a failure. Despite that, he couldn’t stop watching. All he could do was stand outside, in the sinking gloom of night and soak in his despair.

He didn’t know how long he had stood there. The girl, Evelyn, must have tried every broom in the shop twice before picking out a bright white maple _Current_ _Runner_ with silver filigree all down the handle. He was still standing in the street, now very dark and empty, when the family finally paid the shopkeeper and left.

There, in the street, they came face to face with each other. Kuro felt more worthless than the paper that was wrapping the broom. Evelyn’s face curled in fear and disgust and she started to back away. Her father moved to put himself between Kuro and his precious daughter.

“Spare a knut for the poor?” begged Kuro in the most pathetic tone he could muster, trying hard to hide his hate for the loving family.

They did not respond. They simply moved off, down the street, as if Kuro didn’t exist. “Can I have some ice cream?” pleaded Evelyn excitedly.

“No dear, Florean’s is closed for the night, but we’ll be back in a couple of days and you can have a double-scoop, then...”

They left the alley as most wizards did, through a solid brick wall which opens to those that know the secret knock. As the wall closed behind them, Kuro was at last free of the spell of heartsickness their presence had cast.

“Don’t you pay them no mind,” said a tired voice from behind him.

Kuro jumped and spun to find the kind and sympathetic face of Mr. Besom, the broom seller, looking down at him, his shop now dark and closed.

“Folks like them don’t know what it means to have it hard.” He ruffled Kuro’s mop of hair. “More than one of us started our days in Knockturn, though. We remember where we came from.”

He pressed something cold and round into Kuro’s hand. “You take that now and move along. You don’t want to be drawing attention from the wrong sort of folks out here.”

Kuro looked down to find a gleaming golden galleon. It was the most money he had ever held that he hadn’t stolen.

“Th.. Thank you,” Kuro stammered after a moment of shock and confusion.

“Don’t think on it for a moment. I’ve had some good fortune tonight and it’ll do me well to share that around. What’s more, I’ll tell you a secret,” he leaned in close. “That broom she bought is a good-fer-nothin barge. Turns like a boat and won’t go no faster than a drunk pigeon in a headwind. Now get goin ‘fore yer missed.”

Mr. Besom winked, gave Kuro a last pat on the back and shuffled off towards the leaky cauldron for a pint.

Kuro wandered back home in a bit of a daze. He kept turning the galleon over and over in his hand. It felt like a birthday present, a proper gift. Not something that he’d begged for or stolen or found in the gutter, but something given freely. He felt himself smiling and there was a lightness in his chest that was pleasant, though unfamiliar. It was a little like magic, but gentler and warmer. He clambered up the eleven and a half flights to his master’s chamber and stopped just outside the door.

He had forgotten the wine.

How long had he been gone? Hours? His master would be furious. Maybe he would be asleep. Was it that late? He did have a Galleon. That was something, would it be enough to avoid punishment. No, it wouldn’t. He knew it. He could feel his master’s disappointment already and steeled himself for an evening of whipping himself with a belt.

He opened the door.

Silence and darkness greeted him.

He entered the shadowy chamber and cautiously looked around. Phineas wasn’t there. Had he gone out? He hadn’t left in weeks and he always made Kuro stay in the room when he was gone. He never left without warning. His potions and notes were also gone, and his broom and wand. The room was empty but for a candle, chair and bed.

  
In the damp, late winter evening, confused and frightened, Kuro sat on the floor facing the door and waited.


	3. The Whispering Seashell

Kuro waited nearly four full days with no sign of Phineas. Even though he hadn’t been told to, he knew that if he didn’t guard the room, he would be severely punished upon his master’s return. He was finally forced to leave when he ran out of food. 

Kuro was used to being hungry. There had been many times that he had gone without a meal for a day or two. However, he believed that the whipping he would have to give himself if his master came home to a house with no food or drink would far exceed the punishment for leaving the room unattended. 

Kuro locked the door and slid down into the shadows of the alley. He picked his way carefully over to one of his favourite sewers, which led to a street outside a cafe in Leeds. As he hauled the sewer lid open, something caught his eye. There was a familiar snarling face staring at him from beneath a heap of clutter and refuse. Phineas looked furious.

Kuro jumped back and started to apologize for leaving the house. “I’m sorry master,” he babbled. “I didn’t mean to leave the room, but we were out of food. I should have waited longer. He should have eaten less. I’ll go back right away.”  The guilt of his failure overwhelmed Kuro,  and he prepared to slam his fingers in the sewer lid. 

Phineas, did not respond. He didn’t move. He just kept looking around angrily, not making a sound.

Kuro ran to him. “Master, is everything alright?” he whispered. Kuro looked around for possible trouble, but there was nothing. There was nothing in the street, nor was there any response or movement from Phineas. Kuro looked again.

It was indeed his master’s face staring out at him from the garbage heap, but it was only his face. It was the front page of The Daily Prophet, the wizarding news. A photo of Phineas occupied most of it. It was moving, as wizard photos tended to do. Phineas was glaring back and forth, feverishly screaming at the people standing out of frame. He was shackled and chained and the tips of several wands were visible at the edges of the picture, all pointed at him. He looked angrier than Kuro had ever seen him. Even in a picture, that rage turned Kuro’s legs to lead and sent tremors of terror through his body.

Kuro hid in a crevice between buildings and slowly began to read the article below the picture. “Phineas Hearn Captured at Last!” read the headline.

“Phineas Hearn, former Minister of Monster Affairs, known Death Eater, and wanted for the murder of Helena Morris had been apprehended. Aurors raided Hearn’s residence late Tuesday evening and captured the dark wizard without incident.

Phineas Hearn, formerly Lord Phineas Hearn, once awarded the Order of Merlin 2nd Class for his work with endangered magical beasts, was stripped of rank and title after the fall of the ‘Dark Lord’ for conspiring with dark wizards, and charged for his actions as a Death Eater. Testimony from others close to Hearn indicated that he had also been using Ministry resources to run illegal experiments, even before Voldemort’s return to power.

Hearn had escaped capture twice previously. He had narrowly eluded aurors during the retaking of the Ministry. He was found three years later staying in a stolen muggle home, where he again escaped from from a coordinated raid by the aurors, leaving two dead. 

The auror’s had found the Missing Helena Morris at that time, who testified that she had been kidnapped to care for a child that Hearn had been keeping. Morris was found murdered two months later. Hearn is the only suspect in the incident. 

There has been no sign of the child or indication of his identity. He is believed to have been lost in the fire that consumed Phineas’ home during the raid.

Hearn was found in a hidden chamber of one of the crumbling Tenements of Knockturn Alley. Neighbors denied having ever seen Hearn enter or exit the building, and claimed to be unaware of the chamber. Hearn had few possessions in the room, and appeared to have been living in poverty for some time. Those that knew Hearn at the ministry had difficulty confirming his identity due to the diminished state of the wizard. 

Sources inside the bureau informed the Prophet that the capture went smoothly due to Hearn being too inebriated on muggle wine to hold his wand. 

Harry Potter, recently appointed Head of the Auror Office, released a statement today celebrating the capture of Hearn as one of the ‘final nails in the coffin’ of Voldemort’s failed coup.’

“Helena, that was her name,” thought Kuro.

He read the article again. The Prophet used too many large words for Kuro’s liking, but after a couple more readings he understood most of it. The aurors had come again. This time Phineas had been captured and sent to Azkaban prison. They had not come back for Kuro, though. That meant Phineas hadn’t told them about him, or at least not yet.  

Phineas was protecting him, for now. But Kuro knew that the guards were monstrous and powerful at Azkaban. It might not be long before Phineas would be unable to keep him a secret. Kuro couldn’t do anything to save Phineas, but he could do a little to protect him. The Aurors may have raided their room, but they probably did not find the secret cupboard. 

Kuro dashed back to the chamber. Fearful that the aurors might return at any moment, or that they might already be there, he crept inside silently. He checked every corner and shadow for signs of wizardly presence before moving to the cabinet. 

Kuro was, of course, forbidden from opening it without specific instructions. The thought of breaking one of his master’s decrees caused him to dig his nails painfully into his face, scratching long lines down his cheek. He had to endure it, though. If he did not rescue the master’s possessions, the trouble could be far worse. 

Kuro pulled up the loose floorboard under the table and climbed inside. He was getting too big to squeeze into the gap between the floors, but he managed with the help of some magic. 

He had learned that he could squeeze through very small spaces if he imagined himself to be made of just the right kind of syrup. It was painful, though, and he had to crawl nearly twenty yards through splintering timbers and rat nests to the secret compartment. The trek was made worse by the constant compulsion to discipline himself on the rusty nails protruding from the planks around him. 

He breathed a great sigh of relief when he found the cupboard safely closed and untouched. He pulled open the door and took stock of the few contents: Phineas’ battered journal, his satchel full of scientific implements, a polished seashell in wooden box, and his spare wand.

Kuro quickly gathered the first three and reached for the wand. His hand froze inches from the innocuous looking piece of hickory. He couldn’t bring himself to pick it up.

That wand had done terrible things. In all of Kuro’s worst nightmares, that wand was at the centre: Helena’s death, the night of the aurors, his most painful punishments. This was a violent wand; It seemed to glory in destruction. His hand hovered over the twig, fearful of what would happen to him if he touched it.

‘The wand isn’t really secret,’ he reasoned. ‘It’s just hidden for safety.’ He could leave it and it wouldn’t matter if the aurors found it. It might even look better. An empty secret cupboard is much more suspicious than a full one. He breathed a deep sigh of relief and pulled his hand away from the terrifying stick. He closed the cupboard again and retreated back through the crawlspace. 

He took a final look at his home of six years. It had been a terrible place. It was filled with pain and hunger and nightmares, but it was the only home he knew. He was alone now, possibly forever. His only remaining purpose was to protect Phineas’ secrets in case he ever escaped from Azkaban. 

Kuro replaced the floorboard and closed the door behind him, not wanting to leave any trace that he had been there. He crept up the many flights of steps to the top of the building. Staying as hidden as possible as he made his way across the roofs of Knockturn.

He found a new hiding place for Phineas’s things. There was narrow sewer drain that he knew of that stretched many yards under the street. It branched and forked many times and had hidden paths that could only be seen if you looked at them from the right direction. Far down one of these secret paths was a slimy cistern. There, on a rusted piece of iron, he hung the satchel full of implements and placed the book and box inside.

Kuro spend several nights sleeping outside in the cold winter air. He even woke one morning with frost in his hair, but he knew the alley well, and it wasn’t long before he chose a new place to stay. 

There was an an unoccupied church near the Cardiff end of the Alley. It was a burned out stone shell, dangerously unstable, and haunted. Nobody with any good sense would go inside. There was a secret room under the altar which Kuro thought would make a fine place to live. It had once been a wine cellar, but the few bottles that remained had long turned to vinegar, much to the disappointment of Phineas.

Kuro slipped in past the charred pews towards the hidden entrance to the room. He tried to ignore the skeletons in the seats. 

Something terrible had happened to this church, and it had happened so quickly and surprisingly that many of the people in attendance didn’t have time to realize that they had died. Several wispy spirits sat quietly, still waiting for the sermon to start, their charred bones crumbled in the seat beneath them. One of them hushed Kuro for his rudeness when a board creaked beneath his feet, but then they returned to their eternal wait for a sermon that would never come.

He found the cellar just as he remembered it. It had a dirt floor and a low ceiling. An adult would have to crouch to enter it. There were several empty racks for bottles and a large wooden barrel laying on its side that might have once held beer. It was cold, but dry and quiet and hidden.

His intrusion had not gone unnoticed by the church's warden, though. A flaming phantom skull emerged through the ceiling, screaming in a voice that could stop a man’s heart. “Who trespasses in my sacred chambers?”

Kuro nearly jumped out of his skin at the blood-curdling shriek. But he calmed himself quickly when he recognized the fiery spirit. “I’m sorry Rector,” he apologised. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“What has happened my son?” the spirit wailed as the rest of his ghostly form drifted into the small chamber. He still wore the dark robes and square, white collar that it did in life, but he was forever engulfed in a blaze of blue flame and his head was a flaming skull. “Tell me your troubles!”

“My master has been captured,” Kuro said glumly. “My home isn’t safe and I am all alone.”

“So you wish to stay here?” the fiery spirit wailed with furious anguish. “Of course my son! The church is a haven for all lost souls! You are most welcome!” 

The tortured howls sent chills through Kuro’s body. He managed to unclench his teeth to thank the former priest. “It’s very kind of you. I won’t be a bother, I promise Rector.”

“Not at all!” The Rector reached out a spectral hand and patted Kuro on the head, a sensation not unlike having icy spiderwebs strung through your brain. “And please, call me Father John! It has been so long since we had a warm member of the parish! I only wish there were more we could do for you!” 

Kuro shook his head clear of the cobwebs and waited for the ringing in his ears to clear. “Thank you... Father John. Can you speak a little more quietly?”

Kuro cupped his hands to his ears as the ghost howled in response, “I am speaking quietly! You should hear me shout, my dear boy! I can near wake the dead!” A flicker of flame in the priest’s left eye-socket implied that he was trying to wink.

As the ghastly spirit chuckled as it drifted back up to his congregation, Kuro felt himself smile. While heart-stoppingly uncomfortable, that had been the longest conversation he had had with anyone besides Phineas in as long as he could remember. 

Over the following weeks, Kuro settled into his new life with relative ease. Phineas had trained him well to keep himself alive. He rarely went hungry, and had to steal less often since he was only feeding himself. The rector checked in on him often. While their conversations were few due to the ghost’s ear-shattering cry, Father John kept watch over Kuro, and listened whenever Kuro wished to speak.

Kuro made another friend, of sorts. There was a cat that lived in the church. She was a mangy little grey tabby, probably less than a year old, and it had been a hard year. She was stone-deaf, blind in one eye, and had lost the tips of her ears to the frost. Kuro named her Graeae, though she would never know it. He knew the name from a half-remembered story about a one eyed witch and thought it suited her. 

The two kept each other warm at night in the bed Kuro had made inside the large barrel from hay he had found and a warm cloak he had stolen. He shared food with her when she had trouble catching enough for herself, and she offered him mice on occasion, which Kuro politely declined. 

Kuro had another unexpected companion in his life. When he went to check on Phineas’ things, he had heard a whispering in the silence of the the sewer. He searched the pitch-black chamber for the source and found it coming from the small wooden box he had rescued from the cupboard. 

Inside was a seashell. He was still fearful of his master’s retribution, but he had never been specifically told not to touch it, and he was desperately curious. He put the shell to his ear. At first it sounded like a breeze pushing hundreds leaves slowly down the street. But if he listened really closely, he could make out faint words just at the edge of hearing. The rustling leaves were actually a hundred whispering voices, all speaking at once. 

He pressed the spiral shell tighter to his ear and tried to pick out what was being said. He could almost follow the words, but didn’t understand what they were saying. It was mostly numbers and magical potion ingredients, but hidden among the nonsense were other half-thoughts. Memories of the flavors of foods, descriptions of robes, feelings about friends, worries about the future. They were never complete, never coherent. But they felt like secrets, like a friend telling him their private thoughts. 

As the months passed by Whenever he had trouble sleeping, or was woken by nightmares, Kuro would slide down into the sewer to listen to the shell to help quiet his mind. 


	4. The Broom Thieves

Kuro kept an eye on discarded copies of the Daily Prophet for news of his master. But he never found any. Slowly, week-by-week, month-by-month, the fear and anticipation of Phineas’ return faded to the back of Kuro’s mind.

It had been six months since the raid. Over the spring and summer, Kuro had begun to get to know the other people in Knockturn Alley. Many of them were the the sort that you would expect to find there: shady, secretive, and mad. But there were a lot of people like Kuro, as well. People that had fallen through the cracks, they were poor and mistrustful of strangers but kind sorts if given the chance.

He knew that he still had to follow his old master’s orders, but he had found ways to work within them. He wasn’t allowed to speak to people, however, if he spoke to the pavement and someone just happened to overhear him, Kuro wasn’t breaking the rules. Also, he couldn’t steal anything he hadn’t been ordered to take, but if he borrowed things without asking, that wasn’t really stealing as long as he left a note.

‘IOU two bagels, poppyseed’

‘IOU one chocolate frog. H. Granger card.’

‘IOU one sandwich. baloney. slightly eaten.’

‘IOU four candles. Beeswax.’

He didn’t think it a good idea to sign his name, so he signed it with a sketch of Graeae.

Occasionally he would get very unlucky and borrowed something that had been purchased from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, the magical Joke shop. He had developed a small collection of joke products that he couldn’t get rid of: candles that exploded when lit, candies that caused him to glow various colours, shoes that didn’t walk on Tuesdays, and several tonics disguised as sodas that did all manner of inconvenient things, like make him float a few inches off the ground, or blow bubbles for an hour. Weasley products were the only objects he’d ever tried to return to their owners.

He had made some more friends, as well. He visited old Mrs. Vultch a couple of times a week. He would bring her cakes that he had borrowed. She would feed him terrible tea and tell him about the war. He was never clear on which war it was, exactly, but it sounded ghastly. She had fought in it, alongside the muggles, and had met her husband, there. He had died many years back and she had come back to the wizarding world to be among her own kind again.

He also saw Mr. Besom, the broom store owner, in the streets sometimes. He always smiled gently at Kuro when they met and asked how he was keeping. “Stayin outa trouble then?” he would ask. “There’s a good lad,” he would add when Kuro informed the cobblestone slightly to the left of Mr. Besom that he was, indeed, keeping out of trouble.

It was true, too, he had been keeping out of trouble. It had been months since anyone had noticed him stealing. He’d gotten so good at picking pockets that the prophet had started running stories about the ‘Winking Weasel.’

He was offended by the name, at first. His drawings of Graeae seemed a very good likeness to him, if a little rough, but he had to concede that Graeae was a fairly weaselish cat. She was long and thin and her frost-bitten ears were stubby and round. If he was very honest with himself, the picture might as well be a weasel, and the one blind eye did look like it was meant to be winking.

Despite him being so friendly and kind, Kuro had never gone back to Mr. Besom for more money, and never begged outside his store. He never spent the coin that he had been given, either. He kept it with him as a lucky charm. It was his only honest possession, he thought, the only gift he’d ever been given. He cherished it.

Phineas would have told him that this was foolish sentimentality. He would have said feelings like that are what make you let your guard down. They make you weak and stupid and get you caught.

Phineas would have been right.

One night, as Kuro was enjoying the summer night air on the roofs of Diagon Alley, he saw something he shouldn’t have. And having seen it, he should have just closed his eyes and moved on, but he did not.

Kuro was not the only thief in the wizarding world. He wasn’t even the only one living in Knockturn Alley. Whenever possible, he had avoided other thieves and stayed away from their territory, and he never got in the way of them. It wasn’t a good idea to make enemies.

Normally, if he saw a robbery taking place, he would head in the other direction as fast as possible. But this time it wasn’t just any burglary. A pair of scoundrels were forcing the lock on the back door of the broom shop. They were clumsy and loud about it. Kuro stayed hidden on his roof and watched, hoping that they would draw the attention of someone in the street. The street, however, was empty this late in the evening and the noise from the nearby Leaky cauldron away muffled their incompetence.

Kuro watched as the pair of wizards put something on the lock to break the enchantments on the door and crept inside. They emerged a few minutes later, carrying a pair of brooms.

He dropped silently from the roof into the narrow passageway between buildings where the thieves were relocking the door. He used a little puff of magic to slow his descent and his feet gently down without making a sound. Kuro crept closer to get a better look at them.

They were a boy and a girl, only a few years older than Kuro. He didn’t recognize them, but their clothes told him all he needed to know. Their robes were neat, clean and tailored. Their shoes were shined and showed little signs of wear. Their wands were polished and undamaged. In their hands were two of the latest model of Firebolt brooms, just delivered this week. They were the most expensive brooms in the shop. They weren’t proper thieves. They were hooligans, well-to-do wizards playing at theft because they couldn’t be bothered to pay for what they wanted.

Students, Kuro guessed.

Kuro hated students. They were stupid and loud and didn’t know where they weren’t supposed to go. They always had money and never put any in his jar, instead they spent it all on useless garbage from the joke shop and bought more ice cream than they could eat. They boasted and bragged and fought and shouted and made Diagon Alley insufferable at this time of year. All that, and now they were stealing brooms. They didn’t know how good they had it. They didn’t know how lucky they were.

The girl clapped her accomplice on the shoulder in congratulations for a job well done. “Told you it’d be a snap, didn’t I Seph?” The girl’s voice was quivering from the excitement of the burglary.

“We’re not out yet. Come on, Belle, let’s go.” Her partner in crime seemed eager to leave and shuffled nervously.

Kuro was furious.

The pair were halfway out of the alley when stone cracked Belle in the back of the head. She cried out and dropped her brooms, sending them clattering to the ground. She drew her wand and whipped around to face the dark passageway. “Who did that?” she demanded with a combination of equal parts fury and fear.

Kuro didn’t remember throwing the rock. He didn’t even remember moving. He imagined for a moment that he had cast a spell by accident, but his arm was extended and he could feel the damp residue of the stone on his hand. He punched himself for being so foolish.

“Lumos,” Seph whispered, bringing a faint glow to the tip of his wand and illuminating the passageway in a dull white light.

Kuro was suddenly bathed in light and totally exposed. There was a clear gap in the cobblestone pavement at his feet where he had pulled up the stone. There was a moment’s pause as all three took stock and then pandamonium erupted.

“Why you little… Stupefy!” Bella shouted and a jet of scarlet light shot from her wand at Kuro.

He dodged the blast, just barely. Looking to escape, he lept from wall to wall, heading for the roofs. Seph hopped on a stolen broom and shot up overhead, kicking Kuro to the ground just as he cleared the eaves. Kuro landed like a cat on all fours and launched himself forward aiming to dart past Belle into the street, but he bounced off an invisible barrier that she erected with a shout of “Protego!”

Kuro was being boxed in and he was running out of options. He grabbed a stone and was considering whether he could unseat Seph with a well placed shot, when a fourth figure appeared to make everything much, much worse.

“Well, well, what’s going on here?” The voice was smarmy and arrogant. All three children turned to see the man, leaning casually against the wall at the end of the passageway. “Aren’t you under-age for casting spells outside of school?”

Bella panicked. “Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!” Three blazing red streams shot in rapid succession from the tip of her wand directly at the stranger.

He drew his wand as absently as one checks the time, and blocked the crimson bolts effortlessly. Each shot flared brilliantly for a moment, illuminating the stranger’s face.

Flash.

Messy Black hair.

Flash.

Thick-rimmed round glasses.

Flash.

A zig-zag scar on his forehead.

Bella dropped her wand and fell to her knees.

“Good decision,” the man said approvingly.

Seph shot off on his broom into the night.

“Bad decision,” the man sighed and pointed his wand skyward. “Descendo,” he muttered.

Seph and his broom came hurtling back earthward. The man shouted “Momentum Aresto!” and his wand flared blue. Seph’s rapid descent halted inches from the ground. “Stay!” the man instructed.

“As for you,” he turned back to the alley, but Kuro had already gone. He had not waited to see the fate of the plummeting student.

Kuro could not believe his bad luck. It was him, Harry ‘the Hound’ Potter. Pet dog of the Ministry for Magic and the most dangerous auror out there. He was probably going to catch, and very likely kill, Kuro.

Phineas had told Kuro all about Harry Potter. Potter was an auror, but not just any auror. He had killed the Great Lord when he still a student, destroying everything right and proper about wizarding. It was his fault that Phineas and those loyal to the Lord were in exile. It was his fault that they lived in impoverished squalor. He was now the head of the aurors and got there by being unrelenting, unforgiving, and indiscriminate. Any crime, no matter how small, was grounds for Azkaban or worse. Once Potter had your scent, it was said, there was no place to hide. He would tolerate no threat to the reign of the usurper, Minister Shacklebolt, and he would kill anyone he needed to protect their sham government.

Kuro bounded across the rooftops of Diagon Alley, desperately hoping to make it back to Knockturn. There he could disappear down any number of holes or drainpipes, maybe flee the country, find a way to the continent. It was a blind hope, he knew that. The gasping breaths he was taking as he leapt from roof to roof would likely be his last.

Kuro reached the intersection of Diagon and Knockturn and looked back. There was no sign of Potter. He had a moment of hope that Potter hadn’t bothered to follow, when he appeared right in front of him. Potter was straddling one of the stolen brooms and grinning arrogantly. “Somewhere to be?” he asked, his voice dripping with derision.

Kuro felt magic gathering in his feet and shot off sideways along the Knockturn roofs without slowing. Potter gave chase on his ill-gotten broom.

Kuro sped from roof to roof, under arches, around chimneys and through trees but he couldn’t shake Potter off. The Auror was never more than a few meters behind him, cackling like a madman.

He ran faster than he’d ever run, clay shingles bursting from the force of his feet pounding against them. A veritable gale was whipping up behind him, pushing him forward. The world started to drift by in slow motion, but Potter was relentless.

Kuro dropped down a gap between buildings towards a cellar door that led to a small town in the country, but Potter cut off his descent. Kuro managed to catch himself on a ledge just above the Auror and launch himself, light as a feather, back to the roofs.

Again and again Potter cut off his escape. He tried to dive into a closet to Liverpool, under a bridge to a farmer’s field, through a door that was only sometimes real, and into a phone booth to Leeds, but each time Potter was a step ahead, blocking his path.

His muscles burned and his lungs ached. He was running for his life, but at the same time it was exhilarating. He’d never felt so much magic., he could feel its shape as it flowed through him, almost sculpt it. He wished that he would have another chance to use it, but that was seeming increasingly unlikely.

He was running out of street. The end of Knockturn, a dead-end to nowhere if you didn’t take the time to open the exit, was coming up fast. Between here and there, though, was his church.

“It couldn’t be,” he thought. “Did Potter know? Was he forcing him to the church? Had the aurors been watching him the whole time? Was this all a cruel trap?”

He could still hear Potter laughing just meters behind on Mr. Besom’s broom. With the slowing of time around him, the laughter sounded slow, ominous, and mocking. If Kuro was going to fail completely tonight, he decided, he would not go without a fight.

As Kuro reached the crumbling stone arch that made up the last remnant of his church’s roof, he kicked off as hard as he could. He launched himself back towards the cackling auror.

They collided mid-air. Kuro wasn’t heavy, but the surprise of the attack succeeded in knocking Potter from the broom. They crashed down together through the charred timbers in the church. Kuro landed on top of the larger man and rolled free.

Despite the fall, Potter was quick to regain his feet. He drew his wand and pointed at Kuro. He began to say something, but was interrupted by a soul rending scream. Father John burst from the rectory, blazing with righteous fury. “Stay away from him!” he shrieked so loudly that Kuro wasn’t sure he’d ever hear properly again.

The auror’s face twisted into an expression of exasperated horror as the spirit flew to protect Kuro. “Expecto patronum!” Potter shouted.

A vibrant white light erupted from his wand and coalesced into a huge charging stag. The blindingly bright evocation crashed into the wailing priest and drove him backwards. He screamed in ear piercing anguish.

The cries of his friend in agony drove Kuro back into action. He leapt at Potter, fists flying. He pelted the older wizard with blows. Potter was much bigger and stronger than Kuro, though, and kicked him off with ease. He drew a second wand with his free hand, and was about to point it at Kuro when Graeae lept to his defense.

Potter cursed as the feral cat latched onto him, digging her claws deep into his face and neck. He tore the mangy stray off and redirected his wand at the cat.

Everything slowed to a crawl. Kuro felt his legs moving under him. He saw words forming in Potter’s mouth, and a light flaring at the end of his wand. The room went strangely quiet, though he could feel himself yelling something. The wand erupted in a swirling burst of red sparks which sped towards Graeae, but Kuro threw himself in the way.

He felt it hit his chest like a battering ram. There was pain, then his body went stiff, and then there was only darkness.


	5. The Auror and the Headmistress

Kuro was lost in nightmares. They were all of the usual ones: the night of the Auror raid, the death of Helena, a string of punishments each more painful than the last, but something was different in them this time. In each, Harry Potter was standing in the background with a cold, grim expression, watching him suffer.  Also, he couldn’t wake up. 

Normally one nightmare would shake him from his sleep, but this time he just drifted from one terrible memory to another unable to wake. Kuro wondered if he had died, if this was the hell that Father John had warned him about. He would be trapped reliving the worst parts of his life over and over, with Harry Potter as his personal devil.

When the dreams finally stopped and he found some semblance of consciousness again, he had to struggle to force his eyes open. As he did, the pitch blackness in the unfamiliar room around him slowly brightened with a dull, flat light which seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere all at once. 

Memories of the night before rushed into his mind, washing away the nightmares with fresh reality. He jumped from the cot on which he had been sleeping and it sank into stone floor. This annoyed Graeae, who was there also and had not finished sleeping. She hissed at the floor for swallowing her mattress. 

Kuro scanned the room for hiding places or exits, but there were none. The room was entirely empty. There was no door or window. The stones in the walls were so neatly carved that he could barely see the seams between them. He was trapped. There was no place to run and no place to hide. He started to panic, but a voice from behind him turned that panic into anger.

“Good morning,” it said cheerfully. “Are you alright?”

Kuro spun around to face the voice. It was Potter. Smiling patronizingly down at him. 

“Can I get you anything?” he offered. “Are you hungry?”

Kuro said nothing. He just glared back at the auror. He had heard about this sort of thing from Phineas. Aurors would sometimes pretend to be friendly. They would try to earn your trust so you would tell them things that you shouldn’t. Kuro was not going to fall for it.

Potter sighed. “Well, I’m starving. I had a long night, you see: trip to the hospital, mountains of paperwork, had to write a formal apology to the Undead Ecclesiastical Society, some kid knocked me off my broom, and a cat bit me in the face. My wife is going to kill me.” He laughed. 

“Wasn’t your broom,” Kuro spat, failing to stay silent. Potter had struck a nerve on the first pass.

“What?” Potter asked, cocking his head quizzically.

“It wasn’t yours. It was stolen.” Kuro scowled at Potter. “It was Mr. Besom’s broom.”

“That it was. Monster of a broom, too. Haven’t been on one in years. I used to play seeker, you know.” Kuro glared as Potter prattled on. “You gave me quite the chase, too. I’ve had snitches easier to catch than you.”

“I’m not a snitch!” snarled Kuro defensively. 

“I don’t mean…” Potter stumbled over his words. “I was talking about quidditch. The golden snitch. You know? Quidditch?”

Kuro was aware of quidditch. It was a game that rich wizards played, like polo in the muggle world, but on broomsticks instead of horses, and using four fancy enchanted balls. The snitch, he had heard, was made of solid gold. “Don’t like quidditch,” he grumbled.

“Don’t like quidditch?” Potter exclaimed, exasperated. “How? I don’t even... For goodness sake. Just… sit down.” Kuro had rattled the Auror. He considered it a victory.

Kuro was confused for a moment at the instruction to sit. The room was devoid of furnishing. However, when he turned to where Potter was gesturing he found that two wooden chairs with green leather seats had appeared along with a large, heavy well worn desk. The auror sat behind the desk and motioned for Kuro to sit opposite him. 

Potter pulled a steaming cup of coffee from one of the drawers and took a long slow slurp while he waited for Kuro to get settled. Kuro tried very hard to find the chair rigid and unyielding, but the chair was unrelentingly comfortable. He assumed it was enchanted, probably forcing him to be comfortable so he would let down his guard. Graeae didn’t help the situation. Having noticed a warm lap on which to sleep, she immediately lept onto Kuro and curled up, making it impossible for him to sit stiffly. 

“Let’s start again,” Potter said warmly. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re the Hound,” replied Kuro icily. 

Some of the false friendliness drained from Potter. He seemed unfond of the title. “I’ve been called that by some, yes,” he said, looking quizzically at Kuro, as if trying to read his mind. “I’m Harry Potter, Head of the Auror Office. And you are?”

Silence.

“Look...” Potter changed strategies transparently, and his stern expression turned to one of sympathy. “I’d like to help you here, but I don’t know how unless you tell me. Just give me something to work with. Where do you live?”

Kuro just glared at him.

“Where are your parents? Can I at least tell them you’re alright?”

Kuro kept his mouth sealed.

Potter slumped, defeated. “Okay, I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve forced my hand.” He opened a shallow drawer and pulled out a manilla folder nearly two feet thick and slammed it on the desk. He flipped it open and tossed Kuro a small scrap of paper from the top of the stack.

‘IOU one sickle and two knuts’ 

Kuro broke out in a sweat although the room was quite cool. He felt his face flush. 

Potter leaned in and looked very sternly at Kuro. “There are nearly fifty reports in here of minor thefts in Diagon Alley all with the same calling card. An IOU with a picture of a winking weasel.”

Kuro almost corrected him but managed to keep quiet.

Potter started flipping through the seemingly endless file. “The same card seems to appear in a dozen other places around Britain, too. From a cake shop in Bristol to a pizzeria in Kent. What kind of thief steals sandwiches and candlesticks and leaves apologies?”

Kuro felt very very small in front of the looming auror and his pile of evidence.

“Do you want to know what my staff have put together?” Potter dug out a roll of parchment from the pile and began to read. “Ahem... The trivial nature of the crimes indicate an individual stealing for fun or practice. The distribution of incidents indicate a resident, or frequent visitor to Diagon Alley, London, but capable of rapid travel, likely through apparition. The frequency of crimes indicate a pathological need for theft or mischief, and the sophistication necessary to carry them out indicates a wizard with a deep mastery of charms, particularly those related to deception and beguilement as evidenced by the inconsistent witness accounts. However, the handwriting indicates poor education and limited literacy. Combined with the above evidence and given the mustelid nature of the signature, current primary suspect…” Potter paused for effect and to survey his captive. “George Weasely, proprietor of Weasely’s Wizard Wheezes.”

Kuro exploded with laughter. He knew he had given himself away, but he couldn’t help it. He was both flattered and delighted by the idea of his crimes being pinned on the famous joke shop owner. 

Potter was not laughing though. He tossed the scroll aside. “Some very clever people came up with that. They’re quite convinced that one would have to be a very skilled sorcerer, indeed, to rob so many witches and wizards without getting caught. I even almost believed it, but George is more likely to put something unexpected into your pocket than take something out. Anyway, that’s why I was there in the Alley last night. I was there to buy George a round at the pub and ask him about it. But then I found you.” Potter’s eyes seemed to see right into Kuro’s mind. “A skinny little street rat, quick as lightning, quiet as a mouse, knows all the secret places of Knockturn Alley, seems to be quite protective of one of the only two shops in Diagon that haven’t filed a complaint... and has this in his pocket.”

Harry produced a gleaming gold galleon and slid it across the desk towards Kuro. 

“That’s mine.” Kuro growled, furious that it had been taken from him.

“I know.” Potter replied.

“I didn’t steal it.” Kuro snapped, grabbing it off the table. “It was a gift.”

“I believe you.” Potter’s voice seemed genuine. “Who gave it to you?”

“Mr. Besom.” Kuro mumbled. 

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Is that why you stopped the burglars?” Potter seemed to have put all the pieces together before the conversation had even started.

Kuro nodded. 

Potter’s warm smile returned, but seemed more genuine this time. “Mr. Besom was proud as punch when I told him what you’d done, including the part where you knocked me off my broom. He insists that you’re a fine boy, not a criminal bone in your body. Father John, too, says the same. I’m inclined to believe them. I’m happy to let my people continue to monitor George Weasley, even if they do come back glowing purple, or inflated, or desperately infatuated with an umbrella. But…” Potter paused and his look turned menacing again. “I could look a little closer at these reports and you might end up at a formal tribunal and on your way to St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys. Do you understand?”

“So, if I tell you…” Kuro shrank down into his chair and pulled Graeae closer to him.  “Promise you won’t send me to Azkaban?”

Potter looked horrified at the suggestion. “Azkaban? No not Azkaban. Never Azkaban. That’s for dark wizards, murderers and the like. Not petty thieves and street rats... or weasels.”

Kuro thought hard for a moment. He considered how honest the Auror might be. He might still be lying. But then again, the Aurors had much more effective methods of getting information if they wanted to. 

“It’s a cat.” Kuro said at last.

Potter looked at one of Kuro’s notes and squinted a little. Kuro held up Graeae for comparison and Potter smiled broadly in understanding. “No. It’s definitely a weasel.” He winked as he said it and shoved the whole massive file back into its drawer. “Can we start again?”

Kuro nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Kuro.”

“Last name”

“I don’t have any other names.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Don’t have any.” 

“So you’re an orphan, too?” Potter asked in a sad and sympathetic tone.

“No,” replied Kuro. “I don’t have any parents.”

The auror paused for a long moment. “Who raised you then?”

Kuro almost spoke, but bit down on his tongue hard as it tried to form his master’s name. 

Potter hopped out of his chair and lunged over the desk to grab Kuro’s shoulders and restrain him from slamming his head on it. “What are you doing?” he asked in panicked confusion. 

Kuro pried his jaw open, pulling his teeth out of his tongue. He tasted the coppery flavor of blood mixed with pain. “Sorry,” he said.

“That’s all right,” Potter said hurriedly. “Good grief, you’re bleeding. Why did you do that?”

“I had to.” Kuro explained. 

Potter’s brow furrowed and he examined Kuro intently as if he were reading a complicated document. He rummaged in one of the drawers of his desk which seemed much larger than it appeared. He nearly had to crawl inside it to find what he was looking for. After a moment he emerged holding a small bottle of red liquid.  He pulled the stopper and moved around his desk to Kuro. “Hold out your hand,” he instructed. 

Kuro hesitantly stretched out his arm for the auror, who allowed a single drop of the potion drip from the bottle onto Kuro’s hand. The moment it touched his skin it burst violently into a puff of black smoke, leaving behind a small sooty mark.

“Curious,” Potter said to himself. He seemed to have forgotten that Kuro was listening. “Very odd.” 

Potter wandered back to his chair, deep in thought. After staring at his steepled fingers for a few moments, he looked up and noticed that Kuro was still in the room. “Wait here for a moment,” he said, as if Kuro had a choice, and he, along with his desk and chair, vanished.

For several minutes Kuro sat in confused and frightened silence. The only sound was the gentle purring of Graeae, who had slept through the entire exchange. 

Graeae did not sleep through what happened next. A loud clattering noise behind him made Kuro jump from his seat, sending Graeae flying. He spun and tried to hide behind the chair, but found it had gone. 

An ancient looking wizard in white robes and a stained leather apron was wheeling a cart full of magical implements his way. He was so old and withered that his wrinkles had their own wrinkles, and his jowls and earlobes drooped down to nearly meet his collar. On his cart there were strangely curled special-use wands, gruesome looking metal tools inlaid with runes and crystals, dozens of small potions that smoked and bubbled in their poorly sealed bottles. The old wizard fixed one eye on Kuro, while the other seemed to be more intent on keeping the contents of the cart in check. “Up on the examining table, if you please,” the wizard wheezed, as he indicated a long, high, padded table that had wandered in while Kuro wasn’t looking in its direction. 

“Like hell I will,” Kuro said and dove under the table, trying to keep its legs between him and the Wizard with the cart full of torture tools. 

“Oh, for goodness sake, Potter, I haven’t time for this. Please restrain your prisoner,” the ancient wizard wheezed.

“He’s not my prisoner.” Potter appeared behind Kuro and grabbed him by the shoulders before he had a chance to react. “He is my guest.”

Potter wasn’t a large man, but he was surprisingly strong. Kuro struggled fruitlessly in his grip as he was lifted and plonked unceremoniously on the table.

“If I’m your guest,” Kuro snapped, “then I’d like to leave.”

Potter did not loosen his grip. After contemplative pause, he conceded the point. “I suppose you are my prisoner, then. Please act like it for a few minutes and do what you’re told.”

The examiner poked and prodded Kuro with his many instruments, and stared at him through oddly shaped and coloured crystals. He placed drops of an assortment of foul smelling potions very precisely on locations around his body: between his two smallest toes on his left foot, inside his right nostril, under each of his finger nails and just beneath one of his shoulder blades. They variously smoked, sizzled, and tingled. 

At one point the old wizard had pointed a wand in Kuro’s direction and it had taken several minutes for Potter to coax him back out from under the table. Nothing good had ever come from someone pointing a wand a Kuro and he had grown more than a little jumpy around them. 

Throughout the examination the old wizard muttered to himself. It started with “How curious,” moved on to “Curiouser and curiouser,” and concluded with “Well now that is curious.”

Kuro’s fear had turned towards annoyance by the end of the examination, a feeling apparently shared by Potter. “What, if you please Mr. Jellico, is so terribly curious?” Potter demanded after losing his patience.

One of the old examiner’s eyes stopped scrutinizing Kuro and wandered over to meet Potter’s impatient glare. “This,” he said pointing at Kuro as if it were an adequate explanation.

“Some more detail if you please.” Potter rolled his eyes. It was becoming clear to Kuro that this was not the first such interaction the Auror had suffered through.

“It’s a boy,” Mr. Jellico said. “Around eleven years old. Rather small for his age. Brown eyes, brown hair. Also...” The examiner paused to check Kuro over again. “He’s cursed,” 

“I already know that,” said Potter, his fingers tapped on the table impatiently. “What kind of curse?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Jellico. “I’ve not seen one like it.” He seemed sort of delighted by the fact, like he’d just found a new flavor of ice cream that he’d never tried before.

“Can you remove it.”

“Oh, yes.” Mr. Jellico replied, nodding vigorously, which made his wrinkled and droopy face flap about. “But it would almost certainly kill him.”

Kuro went back to hiding under the table and Potter buried his face in his hands. “Is the curse dangerous?” he pleaded with the ancient wizard.

“Only to him, I believe.” Both of the ancient examiner’s eyes returned to Kuro, who was peering back up at him from beneath the examining bench. He looked Kuro over once more through some tinted lenses. “Yes, I’m sure of it. No sign of leakage at all.” 

“Is there anything we can do for him?” Potter asked.

“Not really.” Mr. Jellico admitted.

“Do we have any way of knowing what this curse does, why it’s there?”

Mr. Jellico pondered for a moment, his eyes wandering independently as he thought. “Have you tried asking the child?” 

Potter looked a little defeated. He looked down at Kuro quizzically. Kuro looked back blankly. He was more confused and surprised than Potter.

Potter thanked the old wizard as politely as he could and waved him off. He bowed slightly before he and his cart disappeared through the far wall. Potter, seeming to not realize he was speaking out loud said, in an exasperated tone, “Why is it that all of the most brilliant wizards are completely mad?”

He shook his head and turned to Kuro. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. He looked Kuro up and down a few times screwed up his face as if thinking very hard. “I need to go and send a few owls. Can I do anything for you before I go?’

“Can I be in a different room?” Kuro asked, hopefully. “One with a window and a door?”

Potter arched an eyebrow. “Will you try to escape?” 

There was an over-long pause before Kuro replied. “Yes,” he admitted

“Right. How about I just send up some furniture and breakfast?”

A sofa and a pair of armchairs materialized shortly after Potter had left. A few minutes after that, a short table walked itself in through one of the walls, laden with food. Kuro was very suspicious of the lot. The sofa and chairs looked extremely well worn and comfortable. They seemed like they belonged in front of a fireplace with a very old couple in them drinking sherry and complaining about falling standards in education, not in a prisoner’s cell. They were plush and velvety and warm. The breakfast had enough food to feed a family. There was toast and eggs and sausage and ham, a variety of jams and a collection of fruits. Kuro was very nearly able to resist the allure of it all, but his companion betrayed him, and shattered his resolve.

Graeae, pounced on the table and stole a glistening piece of ham, which she dragged into an armchair and began to tear at it lazily, purring loudly.  Kuro, unable to resist grabbed a sausage and joined his cat on the oversized chair. “If this is poisoned, I’m blaming you,” he said between mouthfuls.

If the was poisoned, it was only with the mildest of sleeping powders. After stuffing himself fuller than he could ever remember being, Kuro felt very drowsy. He curled up in the velvet cushions of the armchair and drifted off into sleep.

Kuro was awoken by a nightmare, the usual one with Helena’s desperate eyes begging him to save her. He sat up quickly and found, rather painfully, that he was no longer in the chair. He had moved in his sleep and was underneath the couch, clinging to a velour throw pillow. He rubbed the painful spot on his forehead where he had slammed it against the wooden frame under the couch and began to crawl out, but stopped when someone entered the room.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Professor,” he heard Potter say.

“I hope this won’t take long, Mr. Potter,” replied an unfamiliar woman’s voice. She sounded stern and impatient. “This is a very busy time of year. School starts next week.”

“I know and I’m sorry, Professor, but that’s exactly why it was so urgent. You see, I have a favour to ask.”

“I do not appreciate the Ministry meddling in school affairs.” the woman snapped.

“It’s not the Ministry at all. Think of it as a personal favour to me.” Potter tried to pacify her with a casual friendly tone, but it wasn’t working.

“A personal favour to the head of the Aurors is the very definition of meddling by the Ministry.”

Kuro poked his head out from under the sofa to get a look. The woman was a middle-aged witch. She had black hair with a few wisps of grey, all pulled back tightly under her large, wide-brimmed, pointed hat. She wore soft, flowing emerald green robes. She had square-rimmed spectacles which only served to enhance the sternness of her features. Her eyes were cold as stone and her lips were little more than a thin line. Potter, though nearly a head taller than her, seemed small and childlike in her presence.

“Now please tell me what this is all about so I can get back to Hogwarts,” she demanded.

“Of course. I’d like to introduce you to the young Mr. Kuro.”

The auror waved his hand and the furniture disappeared, leaving Kuro exposed and looking very silly lying on the stone floor. “Kuro, I would like you to meet Professor McGonagall, Headmistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“Hello,” said Kuro as politely as he could, finding his feet and bowing slightly. He had the strange feeling that he’d seen the woman somewhere before, and Graeae took an instant disliking to her. She hissed and backed away.

“How do you do,” the Headmistress replied. She looked down her nose at him and eyed him very suspiciously.

“He’s a ward of the state, and just turned eleven. I’m hoping you have a place at Hogwarts for him.” Potter said plainly. 

Professor McGonagall turned her suspicious gaze to Potter. “That’s all there is to it, then? Called me all the way to London for a late addition?”

The Head of the Aurors visibly squirmed under the withering gaze of Hogwarts’ Headmistress. “Well… yes,” he replied.

“I do not enjoy being deceived, Mr. Potter.” The professor’s lips had become so thin that they threatened to disappear.

“Well he does had some special circumstances,” Potter admitted. “I was planning to tell you in private, but…”

“He is a thief.” The Headmistress cut him off mid-sentence.

Potter was caught very much off guard. “How? Why do you say that?”

Professor McGonagall drew her wand and with a couple gentle flicks, conjured a small scrap of paper which fluttered into Potter’s hand. 

“IOU 2 black buttons and one hard-boiled egg.”

Kuro cringed. He knew she had seemed familiar. She had been eating lunch on a bench with another woman in red. She had buttons in her pouch instead of coins like normal people. He had needed them so he kept them. 

“What makes you think this has anything to do with him?” Potter asked, avoiding her gaze. 

“Because he happens to be wearing the buttons.” She scowled at them both. 

It was true, and terribly obvious. There were two large black buttons mixed among the other light brown ones that held his shirt closed. “How do you know those are yours?” Potter posed innocently.

“Because, Mr. Potter, they are not buttons.” The woman had become so cross that Kuro was worried that she might burst. Instead, she levelled her wand at Kuro. 

Kuro froze, expecting the worst. He tensed his body and clamped his eyes shut in anticipation. The worst did not come, however. All that happened was that the two buttons liberated themselves from his shirt and fell to the floor with a soft but weighty thud. Kuro risked a peek.

The buttons were gone. They had transformed into a large, leather-bound ledger and an emerald-green handbag. The Headmistress swept over and reclaimed her borrowed goods.

Both Kuro and Potter looked extremely guilty and tried to look anywhere but at the Professor, which was difficult as she was the only other thing currently in the room. 

Kuro was the first to break the silence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have the egg anymore. I ate it”

The professor’s expression softened very slightly at this. “You may find this hard to believe, young man, but it is not you with whom I am disappointed.” She rounded on the Auror. “Come, Mr. Potter, you have a great deal of explaining to do.”

At that, they both vanished. 

Kuro was left staring at Graeae in a completely empty room. 

It was difficult to measure time with no sun, or shadows, or clocks. It seemed like an eternity passed by, and then backed up and took another pass for good measure. Kuro spent the time talking to Graeae who, being unable to hear him, had fallen fast asleep in his lap. “Well at least you’re comfortable,” Kuro grumbled.

Eventually Professor McGonagall and Potter did return. They reappeared behind him and gave him quite a start when Professor McGonagall cleared her throat to get his attention. The headmistress approached Kuro with stiff formality and handed him an envelope. It was made of weighty, expensive-looking paper and had a red wax seal. On it was written “Kuro, Third Holding Cell, Office of the Aurors, Ministry of Magic, London”

The Headmistress cleared her throat and pronounced formally, “I would like to formally accept you into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Kuro wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but he was certain that Hogwarts was better than Azkaban Prison, so he went along. “Um, thank you, Professor.” He bowed awkwardly unsure what the correct thing to do in situations like these was.

The formalities concluded, Professor McGonagall’s expression darkened. “I should warn you, Kuro, we do not tolerate theft, criminal behavior, or rule breaking of any kind at Hogwarts.”

Potter made a strange noise as if gagging or holding in a sneeze.The Headmistress shot him a dark glare, but continued. “You will be on your best behaviour, or you shall find yourself right back here, with a sizeable criminal record to answer for. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am.” Kuro could never meet people’s eyes, but he found he could do little more than stare at his shoes when addressing McGonagall. There was something absolutely crushing about the weight of this woman’s gaze. 

“Very good. I shall see you at the school, next week. Take care, Mr. Potter.” She turned and wandered off. Kuro blinked, and she was gone. 

Once she had left, Potter burst with excitement. He clapped Kuro on the back. “Oh, that is brilliant. Congratulations! You are going to love Hogwarts.”

Kuro severely doubted that. He had met people from Hogwarts and they were dreadful. Worse than that, he would now be one of them.

He was a student.


	6. Lost and Found

The next couple of days were torture. Kuro wasn’t allowed to leave his cell at all. They had given him a fine collection of furniture, but no number of paisley armchairs or plush carpets would make the room anything but a prison cell. Kuro wasn’t used to being trapped inside. He had grown accustomed to having the freedom of the alley, breathing the fresh air, and having room to jump and run. 

Aurors kept popping in and out to check up on him as well, and it was getting tiresome. It seemed that every member of the office must have independently gotten the same instruction. “Are you doing alright? Can I get you anything?” Each of them said.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Kuro always replied. He struggled every time not to say something foolish. He wanted to demand candies and ponies and sacks of gold and freedom, but most of the aurors were dark, dangerous looking witches and wizards. They looked at him with disdain and seemed to only be performing this duty so that they could learn his face should he ever escape. Somehow he preferred the murderous glares of those aurors over the suspiciously bright and friendly dispositions that some of the others put on. There is something deeply disturbed, he thought, about a chipper wizard hunter.

As much as he hated the confinement, he couldn’t complain about the food. Three square meals a day would appear, with bread, meat and vegetables, and even pudding with supper. 

He was desperately bored. The best entertainment the aurors were able to offer were copies of the Daily Prophet. By the end of his second day he’d read two of them, front to back. From headline news about the ministry having to cover up a dragon nesting in Ossington, to odds on the upcoming Holland vs. Brazil quidditch match. He read the classifieds where people were trying to buy all manner of things like enchanted wardrobes, crystal spanners, manticore pups, and more. There was a long, technical, and very dull featured article about the history of Vannevar Bush, an accomplished arithmancer who had invented a sort of electronic owl system that the muggles had somehow gotten their hands on and were calling ‘the internet.’

The only really interesting part of the paper were the adds. There were a variety of beauty care products on display, several competing broom manufacturers all with pictures of their most recent models, and a large advertisement featuring the Weasley brothers, George and Ron, and some of their latest gag products. Being a wizarding paper, all of the pictures were moving. Kuro laughed as Madam Primpernelle left her advertisement to demonstrate her products on the wizards in the other articles, often against their wishes. The broom demonstrators attempted to sabotage each other’s ads, and George Weasley wandered throughout the the paper, planting firecrackers in the portraits of authors and officials when they weren’t looking. 

By the middle of the second day, even watching the dark, stoic, and bald Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, grow a luxurious head of hair from an unwanted application of ‘Primpernelle’s Instalocks Formula,’ only to have it ignited by a ‘Weasely Wiz-Bang’ had lost its appeal.

Eventually, Kuro resorted to staring at the upholstery on the sofa to pass the time. He had just about committed the paisley pattern to heart, when his eyes fell on the Hogwarts letter, which he had been pointedly ignoring. It seemed to him to be an elegantly wrapped prison sentence. He might not be going to Azkaban to join Phineas, but he wasn’t going to be going free either. He was being sent to another kind of prison, one with classes and grades and loathsome rich brats and if he messed up, then he would probably be sent to a proper prison. He wasn’t sure which would be worse. At least you couldn’t fail out of prison.

He broke the seal on the envelope and retrieved the pages within. The first was exactly as expected, an acceptance letter written as if he was being done a great favor by being inducted into the school.

“Dear Kuro, 

I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. 

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Headmistress”

“Books and equipment?” Kuro thought. “What does she mean books and equipment?” It seemed a cruel joke. He had a single galleon to his name and he wasn’t about to spend it on crystal alchemy sets and pewter cauldrons. 

He began to go over the list grumbling to himself. “Three sets of work robes? I don’t have three sets of socks. A telescope? If I had the coin for a proper telescope I’d not be living in a cellar.” On top of that there were a dozen other items, including eight books, a stack of clothing, a pile of magical implements and, Kuro began to sweat as he read the word, a wand.

Kuro did not trust wands. They were violent and sinister things. They warped minds; they beat, tortured, and killed people; they spread fire and destruction. The idea of carrying a wand was deeply unsettling. He did not want to be a wizard, and yet if he did not become one, he would be sent to prison for his crime. It seemed very unfair.

There was some small solace in the letter, though. “Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl or a cat or a toad.” He patted Graeae affectionately. She could come with him. She wouldn’t have to spend another winter alone in the street. Hogwarts would, if nothing else, be warm. She might even like it. 

“Reading your Hogwarts letter?” Potter boomed excitedly behind him, causing Kuro to dive under an armchair in surprise. “I still remember the day I got my letter. Best thing that ever happened to me. Come on let’s get your things.”

Potter pulled Kuro out from under the chair and then, quite suddenly, they weren’t in the cell anymore. They were in a long hallway with aurors rushing back and forth past them, all looking very busy and moving with great importance.

Potter pushed Kuro along, out of the Auror’s office and through a labyrinth of hallways that led to the elevators. Along the way, Kuro saw Aurors attempting to settle a dispute between a giant and a goblin, a wizard that had drunk too much bottled confidence being hauled in chains up to the cells while raving furiously about his inevitable rise to power, and a very large room full of desks occupied by an army of very tired looking clerks.

They rode the elevator down to level 8 along with a Dwarf that had been paying a fine for exploding a pub and a Hag that had been given a citation for threatening to eat muggle children. 

The elevator opened into a veritable circus of color and noise. Witches, wizards, dwarfs, ghosts, goblins, and more swarmed in all different directions. Multicolored paper airplanes whizzed about delivering interoffice mail while dodging the many owls that were coming and going with post. In the middle of the whole thing was an embarrassingly large golden statue of a witch, and wizard wands outstretched, leading a charge of other magical peoples and beasts against some unseen opponent. 

Potter kept one hand on Kuro at all time as if he expected him to bolt for an exit the moment he saw one. Potter wasn’t wrong. Given a moment unattended, he could be into one of the hundred fireplaces that lined the great hall, and up through the flue network to freedom. Twenty seconds and a handful of floo powder and he could be anywhere in England. Kuro didn’t try it though, he barely even considered it. Even Phineas had feared Potter. Potter was playing nice for now. Kuro didn’t think it a good idea to sour his mood. Besides, once Harry the Hound had your scent, there was no place on earth you could hide for long.

Kuro saw that he wasn’t the only one who feared Potter’s wrath. Witches and wizards of all stripes, upon catching a glimpse of the auror would stop talking, stand up straighter, act pleasant and polite, and move as if they had somewhere urgent to be that was very far from where they currently were.

Potter seemed oblivious or indifferent to this. He seemed far more interested in Kuro’s Hogwarts letter. “Hardly anything has changed,” he exclaimed “Same old Hogwarts.” He prattled endlessly about his classes in first year, his favorite professors, how much Kuro would like somebody named ‘Hagrid’ and more. He seemed taken aback by any change in the document from what he remembered. “Arithmancy?” he cried in dismay. “Arithmancy in your first year? That’s just cruel, can’t imagine why they’d do that do you.”

Potter also returned regularly to the topic of quidditch. “No brooms for first-years. I had a special exception, though. I was scouted for the Gryffindor quidditch team in my first year. Youngest seeker in a century. You’re going to love quidditch.” He then went on to relay great plays that he had made and matches he had won.

Kuro was starting to consider volunteering to go to Azkaban if it would get him away from Potter. He was just on the verge of begging a passing wizard to erase the past hour from his mind when they stopped abruptly.

They were at a small and unattended counter at the end quiet and forgotten hallway. It had a well-worn wooden top that Kuro had to hop to see over. Behind it seemed a dark and cavernous chamber from which emanated the echoes of fluttering bats, creaking wood and dripping water. A sign hanging above the counter read “Lost and Found.”

Potter looked over the counter and peered into the dark space beyond, trying to find someone to talk to. Seeing nobody, he rang the a small bell that was sitting on the counter. The soft ping that it made seemed to bounce around the massive chamber a dozen times, becoming haunting and distorted as it echoed back to them.

A woman’s voice drifted back to them “Coming!” It was impossible to discern the direction it had come from and it sounded like a half-dozen other people answered the same. Several minutes passed before they began to hear clear footsteps approaching at a run though it was unclear if it was a small army coming, or merely echoes. 

Finally the woman appeared at the counter, breathing hard and covered in dirt. She wore heavy boots, thick coveralls and tough-looking gloves. On her head she had what looked like a miner’s helmet with a bright light shining from the front of it, and a pair of goggles that seemed so greasy she probably couldn’t see through them. Around her neck hung several compases and each of her pockets were jammed with maps and ledgers. She seemed young, but it was hard to tell under the layer of dusty filth that coated her. 

“Sorry about that,” she said brightly. “I was just climbing through the shoe stacks trying to find a match to this.” She held up a woman’s broom riding boot. “I’m sure it’s in there somewhere, I remember seeing it come in. What can I do for…”

She had pulled off her goggles to clean them while she spoke. She cut off  when she saw Potter. She stared at him, completely unmoving, as if she had been frozen solid. Potter waited impatiently for her to thaw and eventually she began to sputter. “H-H-Harry P-Potter, I mean Mr. Potter. Mr Auror sir. What, what can I… we... I do for you?”

“Hello Ms. Glauber.” Potter replied which drew another panicked outburst from the woman behind the counter.

“He knows my name?” she muttered to herself, “That’s probably not good. What have I done? what did I do? I don’t remember doing anything. Did someone erase my memory? Did I erase my memory? I don’t remember drinking any potions, but then I wouldn’t would I...”

“Periera, please,” Potter interrupted, but knowing her first name did not help the situation nor did demanding that she calm down. Eventually he just gave up and explained himself over her babbling. “I would like to requisition some items from your stores please.”

Periera reassembled her lost composure. “What?” she said, her dirty brow furrowing around the clean patches that had been left by her goggles. 

“I am not here to arrest you,” Potter said, sounding artificially comforting and pleasant. “I have a student in need of some supplies for school. He does not have the funds available, and I imagine you have some surplus.” He handed her the Hogwarts list.

“What?” Periera repeated, shocked at the suggestion, her initial fear of Potter vanishing in a cloud of indignation. “You can’t just take things from here.” She turned and made a sweeping gesture as her headlamp illuminated the nearest piles of lost items. There were several hundred brooms piled up like a bonfire ready to be lit. There were umbrellas by the dozen sorted by colour, pattern, and enchantment. There was a set of shelves so long they vanished into the distant darkness teeming with so many hats they looked ready to topple. “They belong to people.”

Potter screwed up his eyes and rubbed his forehead scar in frustration. “I trust that you’ll be able to pick some out that won’t be missed.”

“I…” Periera straightened up and stood to attention. “Yes sir. I’ll do my best.”

She opened a hatch in her counter to let them in, and produced two helmets, like her own, with bright lamps and chin straps. “Do I really need this?” Potter asked, examining it skeptically. “I’ve a wand for light.”

“Oh yes, almost certainly.” Periera asserted. “We’ve been having problems with book-slides lately. Also, you’ll want your wand free just in case.”

“In case of what?” asked Potter.

“Gremlins, mostly.” Periera examined the list of items they would be needing and checked several of her battered maps. She scowled disapprovingly at a couple of the items and grabbed a large boar spear that was resting against a wall near the counter. “This way!” she said brightly and headed off into the gloom. 

They marched through a labyrinth of shelves teeming with assorted items. They marched past a hundred yards of teacups, took a left turn at a large molding stage-coach, through a tunnel that had been dug out of the endless piles of lost socks. Potter was often distracted by strange objects and the sounds of distant collapses and Kuro considered he could probably make a break for it. Looking at the impenetrable maze around him, he thought better of it. He might get free of Potter, but he’d likely starve to death before he found his way out.

They took a sharp left around a towering rack full of spectacles and stopped abruptly at the base of a black and musty mountain of multicolored fabric. “First stop, children’s robes.” Periera gestured proudly at the enormous pile, which stretched beyond the light of their lamps. 

“Where does this all come from?” Kuro asked in wonder.

Periera bent over and threw her arm over Kuro’s shoulder and pulled him close so Potter couldn’t hear them properly. “Wizards,” she whispered. “They can’t keep track of anything and they put so much magic into their stuff that it wanders off on its own. Most of them are too lazy to go look for it, too, they just conjure up replacements. Anything that gets found, ends up here.”

“What do you mean ‘they?’ Aren’t you a witch” Kuro asked, confused. 

“What? Nah, I’m a squib. Not a magical bone in my body.” Periera planted her fists firmly on her hips and puffed out her chest proudly. “I actually work for a living. Not like those wizards, just magicing up whatever they want.” She winked.

Kuro took a furtive glance at Potter, who seemed to be fighting to find something to say in defence of wizards. He couldn’t seem to come up with anything, which pleased Kuro very much. “Which are the boy’s robes?” Potter asked, changing the subject. 

“Over on the left side. This way!” Periera led them halfway up the hill on the left and instructed them to start digging for something that fit. “Now you can’t take anything too new. Someone could come for it. More than about two years old should be fine, their owners would have grown out of them anyway. You can tell by the smell.”

“What’s the difference between boy’s and girl’s robes” shouted Kuro across the mountain of linen and wool as he pulled a promising looking robe up and held it against himself.

“Oh, there isn’t one,” replied Periera, shaking the dust out of a promising find and taking a sniff. “People just seem to feel better if I tell them there is. Try this one on.”

It was too large, and the next too small, and the following turned out to be a very large bat that was quite upset at being handled so roughly. It took some time and a fair bit of digging, but they managed to collect a good supply of well fitting black robes that didn’t smell too badly of mildew. 

Similar adventures were had collecting more clothing. They travelled over piles of misplaced notebooks, to the glove hills. They combed through endless shelves of discarded texts to find schoolbooks for Kuro. They had to take a large detour around a landslide of pocket watches to get to the cauldron caves. 

While they waited for Potter to fight off a small contingent of curious gremlins, Kuro asked Periera, “Why don’t you just get rid of some of this stuff?”

“What? Throw it away?” she replied, shocked.

“Or give it to people. Sell it. Anything really, this place is mad. Brilliant. But mad.” 

Periera sighed and gazed warmly over her strange domain. “There’s rules. Old rules. And old rules are very hard to break. They have power. Someone made this place when the Ministry was new. They enchanted it to always be big enough to hold whatever was lost and found again and promised to keep whatever came in till it was claimed. I don’t think they had any idea what they were doing. Typical wizard.”

Potter had finished fending off the assault by the toothy and came back panting slightly. “Why?” he asked as he caught his breath, “are there monsters living unchecked inside the ministry of magic?”

“That is a very good question,” Periera replied in a very accusing tone. She glared at harry through her large goggles and crossed her arms. “You’d think someone could do something about it.” 

“Not my department,” the auror muttered defensively.

“Technically...” she pointed to a large ‘Department of Magical Law Enforcement’ badge on the shoulder of her coveralls. “It is.” 

“I’ll um…” Potter stammered. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Kuro was really starting to like Ms. Glauber.

Periera revelled for a moment in her minor victory before returning to the list. “One more item,” she said apprehensively. “And it’s a doozy. I don’t much like going to the wands section if I don’t need to. They get a bit restless after being alone too long.”

A chill swept through Kuro’s body. He had been dreading this. The three intrepid explorers approached the wand racks. There were two rows of wooden cabinets facing each other, ten meters high and running off straight into the distant darkness. Each cabinet had a hundred tiny doors in them with a wand hiding behind. There was a quiet rattling sound as the old, forgotten wands tried to free themselves from their containment. Kuro felt a sinister aura settle around the whole place and he added this moment to his already expansive collection of nightmares. 

The aisle seemed to give Potter and Ms. Glauber pause as well. “Let’s get this over with, then.” said Periera grimly. She advanced warily she scanned the tiny brass labels on the small cupboard doors and found something she seemed to think promising. “Why not start with something durable, eh? Ebony and dragon scale, nine inches, give it a twirl.”

She presented the black and beautifully polished wand to Kuro handle first. He stared at it not moving. 

“Go on then,” urged Potter. “It’s not going to bite you.” 

Kuro was uncertain about that. It was part dragon, after all. With great resolve, he forced himself to grip the wand. He picked it up, shut his eyes and gave it a swish through the air. 

It felt like he had been kicked by a horse. He flew back several meters and slid a few more while the wand clattered to the floor where he had been standing. 

“That’s unusual. Probably too loyal to its first owner,” said Potter while Periera ran to help Kuro to his feet. “Maybe we should try something with a bit less punch.” He checked over the labels on several doors and unlatched one. “Elm and unicorn tail, give it a go.”

The previous experience had not instilled Kuro with much confidence. He took the wand lightly and flicked it just slightly. It sprang from his fingers and launched itself spinning into the darkness. 

Dozens of wands went this way. Kuro’s arm had gone numb from the shocks some of the wands had delivered. Periera set up an old mattress behind him to catch Kuro when a wand rebelled too vigorously. “Don’t worry about it,” Potter said in false-sounding comfort. “I had just as much trouble finding my first wand. This is to be expected. It’s normal. Well, mostly normal. Just be more assertive, make the wand know you’re in charge.”

Kuro was not encouraged by his words, particularly as the next wand that was handed him, a willow wand with a troll whisker core, launched him well over the mattress and left him winded on the floor. 

Periera helped him to his feet yet again and patted him sympathetically as Potter continued scanning the cupboards. “I wonder,” he muttered, pausing and tapping his finger on a door of interest. “I wonder.” 

He opened the door and pulled out a shabby looking stick. “Pine and elf hair, seven inches.” He tossed it to Kuro.

It was short and knotty and crooked. It looked more like a fallen branch that the bark had worn off of than a finished wand. It was scuffed and ugly and had possibly been broken in half at some point. He turned it over in his hands. It felt warm and soft and didn’t seem to have the same malice that the others did. It seemed almost lonely. He waved it very gingerly, and nothing happened. He gave it another, broader wave and felt a warm hum that soothed his aching arm. Another swoosh, and the wand started to leave a gentle glowing trail of light behind it. 

“Curious,” Potter said to himself, tapping the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. 

“If that’s everything,” Periera interrupted loudly, “I’d like to get out of here before the jabberwock finds us.”

“What’s a jabberwock?” Kuro asked fearfully, scanning the blackness around them for signs the beast. 

“Nasty thing,” replied Periera, gripping her spear tightly. “Massive jaws, whip fast claws, and eyes that shoot fire. Lucky it’s so damp in here or the whole place would have burned down by now.” She checked two maps and three compases and started to lead them out of the cavern.

The trip back to the counter took over an hour. By the time they emerged, sweaty and filthy, the Ministry had grown quiet. It was well past quitting time, which Ms. Glauber was happy to remind Potter. 

Potter promised to send someone to look into the monster problem as an attempt at an apology, then dragged Kuro and all his new belongings back through the empty and echoing halls of the ministry.

Kuro was placed back in his cell along with a late dinner, and his new wand. Everything else, Potter said, was to be laundered in preparation for the next day. “You’ve a train to catch, so get a good night’s sleep. I need to go home and get scowled at by my wife for being late again.”

Kuro sat and ate, being pointedly ignored by Gaeae who was upset for having been abandoned. He had trouble sleeping that night, but not for the normal reasons. He kept picking his wand up and turning it over in his hands, feeling the grain, getting to know it. As familiar and comfortable and friendly as this wand seemed, he was still trying to come to terms with the idea of even having a wand, of being a wizard. 

He did not, however, have any nightmares.


	7. The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-quarters

Kuro woke to find that a large trunk had been left in his room. A brass plate on it was embossed with his name. On top of it sat a plastic container full of holes, meant for carrying cats, a set of muggle clothes, and a note.

“Kuro,” it read. “Clean yourself up and put on the muggle clothes. I hope they fit. New underclothes are in the trunk as well. We will be leaving at 10:15 sharp to get to King’s Cross Station for the train to Hogwarts. 

We cannot be late.

H.P.”

Kuro was about to complain loudly about how unhelpful it was to be given a strict departure time in a room with no clock, but he turned to find that a large, an ancient looking grandfather clock had been added to his cell along with a claw-foot bath tub that was in the process of filling itself. 

He bathed and dressed in the jeans and T-shirt that had been provided. Then he tried to put Graeae into the cat carrier. She was deeply unimpressed with the concept and complained loudly as Kuro encouraged, then coaxed, and finally shoved her into the plastic cage. Just as he had finished wrestling her inside, Potter appeared behind him. “Ready?” he asked with infuriating cheer.

Kuro turned to face him and Potter’s false-cheer drained from his face. Kuro’s new shirt had spots of blood and holes from his wrestling match with Graeae. Despite being clean, his unevenly brown skin made it look like he was still dirty, and his floppy brown hair was an unruly disaster. 

Potter buried his face in his hands. “You’re hopeless,” he said and whipped out his wand. Kuro dove for cover, but he was too slow for the experienced Auror. “Vestimentum reparo!” 

There was a brilliant flash of yellow light and the blast caught Kuro in the chest just before he rolled behind the tub. He curled up waiting for the pain, but nothing came. He looked down at his chest, where the blast had connected, and found his shirt had been mended.

“What are you doing?” Potter scolded him. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

He hauled Kuro to his feet, handed him the yowling cat carrier, and grabbed the large trunk. He took Kuro by the hand and started walking. Kuro blinked and they were in the hallway of the Auror’s office. Potter pulled Kuro through the bustle of the office. There were notes flying this way and that, and aurors popping in and out and moving with urgency. 

Kuro looked back as they left the busy office and noticed a distinct settling of activity in the absence of Potter. 

He was pulled through the hubbub of morning traffic in the ministry and into an old fashioned phone booth standing incongruously in the middle of a busy hallway. They both crammed inside with Kuro’s trunk. Potter put a muggle dime into the phone, dialed a number, and the booth began to rise off the floor into a square hole in the ceiling, just big enough for the booth.

For several long seconds they travelled in absolute darkness before popping out into an ordinary looking downtown London street. Potter opened the door and they fell out into the street. The passing muggles seemed to take no notice of their odd behavior or the sudden appearance of an elevating phone booth.

A man in a fine green suit was waiting for them. He stood at attention and saluted briskly, bringing his white gloved hand to the polished black brim of his green cap. “Your car is waiting sir,” he said.

Potter had Kuro climb into the back seat of the large black sedan that looked like it had driven out of an old gangster film. He handed him Graeae in her case, and climbed in with him. The driver pushed the large trunk into the boot, slid into the front seat and asked, “Headed to platform nine and three-quarters, sir?”

“Yes. fast as you please, we don’t want to be late,” Potter replied as he settled into his soft leather seat. 

The driver entered traffic like a bullet leaves a pistol. There was no signalling or gentle acceleration; they were parked, and then they were not. Kuro had only travelled in a few cars in his life, and none had been quite like this. The driver seemed to have no patience or interest in things like speed limits, traffic lights, or lanes and he had very little respect for the basic laws of physics. He drove as though the roads were empty and left the car to do most of the hard work. It squeezed between tight spaces, ducked under large lorries, changed direction on a pinpoint, and never so much as jostled its passengers or flustered another driver. “Ms. Glauber was right,” thought Kuro. “Wizards are really lazy.”

As they zipped through the London traffic, Potter asked Kuro if he knew how to get to platform nine and three-quarters.

“Of course I do,” replied Kuro. “Everyone does. You walk backwards through the turnstile beside Borgan and Burks.”

Potter’s expression shifted and it seemed that not quite everyone knew about that particular entrance. “Do they now? Interesting. Well, we’ll not be taking that entrance today.” They stopped abruptly outside a large yellow brick muggle building. A nearby sign read “King’s Cross Station”

Before exiting, potter tapped his wand to the top of his head and a disguise unfurled over him like a silk sheet and settled into place. Potter was gone, replaced with an middle-aged muggle-looking fellow in a tweed suit with a bushy moustache and a receding hairline. The only remnant of the auror was his telltale scar. “I assume you’d rather not be dropped off by Harry ‘the Hound’ Potter for your first day, am I right.” The old man that had been Potter grinned, looking very pleased with himself.

Potter wasn’t wrong. If he was to be stuck at Hogwarts, it would be nice if he wasn’t escorted there by police. The closest he could bring himself to thanking Potter, though was to point to his own forehead to indicate that Potter’s scar was still showing.

“Right, of course.” Potter pulled a floppy flat cap from a pocket and pulled it low over his forehead. “Blasted thing refuses to be transfigured. Let’s go.”

They pushed through the teeming crowd of muggles coming and going from their various trains, and worked their way into the station. Kuro saw other students. Some blended in well, with suitcases and fashion that reasonably matched the muggles around them. The only sign that they were headed to Hogwarts were Caged owls and train tickets printed on parchment. Others were not so skilled at muggle mingling. They wore odd combinations of smoking jackets and Wellington boots with jogging pants, and swimsuits under sports jerseys for teams that no longer existed. 

One man wore a tailcoat and a baseball hat and guided his daughter through the station, who wore a frilly nightgown over a plaid button-down shirt. The pair kept staring at muggles in shock and amusement and pointing as if they were at a zoo. They struggled to purchase a chocolate bar from a vending machine and then marvelled at it operating without any magic.

Potter directed Kuro through the crowd to a large, solid barrier separating platforms nine and ten. They paused for a moment, letting another group of students approach. A young lost-looking round-faced boy followed a broad older boy pushing a cart full of luggage up to the barrier. The older boy looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, and then shoved the nervous younger child face-first into the barrier. 

He vanished. Instead of bouncing off the barrier with a bloody nose, the round young boy was simply gone. The older one grabbed the cart and pushed it straight at the wall, both of them disappeared just as they should have crashed loudly into it.

“Got the gist of it?” Potter asked Kuro. 

“Yeah, I got it.”

“After you, then.” Potter waved him on and followed close behind.

There had been a couple of walls like these in Knockturn Alley. Kuro hadn’t liked them much. It was always disconcerting to walk straight into a solid object. He shut his eyes, took a deep breath and tromped through the barrier. He felt a darkness surround him, but he kept walking. Then, suddenly, the entire atmosphere changed. It was humid and smoky and there were the sounds of a hundred children and their parents all talking at once. 

He opened his eyes. He was standing on an old, red brick train platform filled with students and their families. Trunks, cases, and cages were being loaded onto the many cars of a red locomotive, who’s old steam engine was spewing smoke. Tearful goodbyes of parents were being delivered alongside bright greetings of friends that had been parted for the summer.

“Platform nine and three-quarters,” Potter beamed. “Never changes. The color, the sounds, the excitement.”

“The smoke, the smell, the noise.” Kuro added. 

Potter ignored his comments and pushed him on towards the train. He stopped a couple of times and almost waved to people he knew, nearly forgetting that he was in disguise. Kuro also saw someone he knew. He spotted the unmistakable collection of tumbling golden locks of Evelyn, the rich girl from the broom shop. She looked to be wearing brand new everything for the occasion. 

Her white blouse practically glowed under a royal blue cardigan and you could fix your hair in the shine on her shoes. Her perfectly pressed plaid skirt bounced and twirled with her as she greeted other students. She behaved as if they were fortunate to have the chance to meet her, waving and smiling like some sort of celebrity. She left the loading of her several trunks to an exhausted looking porter. 

Kuro had just started to feel like Hogwarts wasn’t going to be so bad and the reminder that he’d be sharing it with her had spoiled that hope entirely. Kuro scowled, grabbed his trunk from Potter and trudged toward the train. 

Potter boarded the train with Kuro and directed him to the last cabin in the last carriage. It was empty, for the moment. Once they were inside, he dropped his jovial uncle act. “Listen Kuro,” he said. “You stay in this cabin for the whole ride. We’ll be watching. Step out and you’ll have an auror on your heels before you can blink. Got it?”

Kuro nodded sullenly.

“Good. You’re only going to get one chance at Hogwarts, so don’t mess this up on yourself and go running away or stealing things. And… try to enjoy it. It’s great there, really. Best years of my life.” Potter mussed Kuro’s hair in a patronisingly paternal way.

Kuro shook off Potter’s empty comforts. He doubted that his time would be much like Potter’s. It seemed unlikely that Potter, most famous wizard of his generation, started his career as a prisoner of the state. The only optimism he had in reserve, was that nobody would recognize him for what he was, at least for a while. 

Potter left Kuro and stepped off the train, but Kuro could see him through the window, watching him like a hawk. Kuro did his best not to feel sorry for himself. He had never been on a train, he could try to enjoy the ride, if nothing else. He’d pretty much only ever seen cities, and had never been to the countryside. The cabin was also pretty warm and welcoming. The seats were plush red velvet and the benches were big enough to lay down on. The racks for storing luggage were sturdy, too, and he tested them out by swinging from one to the other by his arms.  He let Graeae out of her carrier and passed some time watching her explore the little room. A couple groups of students came exploring, but left when they found that the cabin wasn’t empty. 

Finally, eleven chimed on the large clock that was floating above the commotion of the station and the train whistle blew. Kuro’s cabin lurched slightly as the train started to accelerate. There was a forest of waving hands from tearful parents and siblings too young to join the ride. There was also one, very serious looking man in a tweed suit, unmoving in the crowd who stood staring at Kuro. Kuro locked eyes with Potter as the train pulled away from the station. He looked severe, cold, and calculating. Kuro blinked, and Potter had vanished. 

He sat back in his seat and started to watch the scenery move by. They were rolling through green hills almost immediately. Fields of sheep and cattle and small stone farmhouses drifted past out the window. It wasn’t clear exactly where platform nine and three-quarters actually was, but it definitely wasn’t London. 

Kuro started to ponder how much Potter knew. Probably everything, he imagined. He wouldn’t have been allowed to go so easily if Potter had thought there were any information worth torturing out of him. Perhaps he was being held as a hostage, of some kind. It amused him a little to think of Potter trying to level threats against his master using Kuro as leverage. If that was Potter’s plan, he would be sorely disappointed when he found out just how little Phineas cared for Kuro. It did worry Kuro, though, to think what might become of him if his value to Potter ran out.

He didn’t have too long to dwell on this, though, because only a few minutes out of the station, his door slammed open. A young girl was standing in the doorway grinning madly. 

She was thin and lanky and at least a head taller than Kuro. She had wiry dirty-blond hair that was rapidly escaping the short braids it had been put into. She had a cardigan and skirt on, not entirely unlike Evelyn’s, but the skirt was worn over a pair of jeans and the cardigan had been tied roughly around her waist, likely stretching it irreparably. “Hello!” she said as she peered around Kuro’s cabin.

Kuro was about to return her greeting, but the girl didn’t give him the chance. “Are you a first year too? This is the very last cabin. I’ve seen them all now. They’re mostly the same, but the car at the front is only for house prefects and the head boys and girls. They get their own tea service there and everything. Most of the other cars are all split up by house but there are first years all over. There are a lot of us. Why is your cabin empty? There is only one other cabin with just one person in it but that’s a teacher I think so people were afraid to be in it with her. I was going to go there when I had finished exploring the train because there aren’t many other spots can I come and sit with you instead?”

Kuro almost had a chance to nod before the girl was talking again, barely taking time to breath. “Great, I’ll get my stuff. I’m Charlotte, by the way, Charlotte Cook, but everyone calls me Charlie, well my dad does, but that’s pretty much everyone. Whoa! No you don’t!” Charlie had caught Graeae around the middle as she had tried to slip past her out of the cabin. 

She held up Graeae admiringly. “You have a cat! She’s great! What’s her name? Dad wouldn’t let me have a cat, says it would eat the cockatrice chicks and dig up the mandrakes.” 

Graeae looked extremely uncertain what to do as she was dangled from her shoulders by the strange girl. She clawed at the air trying to find something to cling to, but the girl held her firm and safely away from her body. Graeae looked pleadingly at Kuro for rescue as the girl carried on. “I’ve a toad, though. Do you want to meet him? He’s very friendly. I’ll go get him.” Charlie tossed Graeae onto Kuro, slid the door closed and disappeared down the hallway towards the front of the train.

Graeae and Kuro sat in stunned silence, entirely uncertain what had just happened. Neither had much of a chance to work out the details, because moments later she was back, dragging a large canvas dufflebag behind her. She hauled it into the cabin, hopped onto the bench opposite Kuro and unzipped her bag. She pulled out a large hat box and held it up proudly. “His name is Mr. Toadsworth. You’re gonna love him. Maybe him and your cat will be friends.”

Kuro held on to Graeae tightly, expecting that she would be very keen to meet a toad. She was probably getting hungry. 

Charlie lifted the lid on the box and proudly displayed its contents. It was a good thing that Kuro had been holding Graeae, because she definitely did react; she tried to bolt. 

The box did contain a toad, but just barely. The squat mottled mass of warts that was Mr. Toadsworth filled the box entirely and spilled over the edges a little. He was huge. He dwarfed Kuro’s scrawny stray tabby, and had such a wide mouth that he could probably have swallowed her in one bite. Charlie hauled his bulk out and plopped him onto the seat beside her. He settled into place like a pile of bread dough and closed his eyes contentedly as Charlie began to stroke his head. 

“Dad says he’ll miss him around the farm. He ate the doxies which are a real pest sometimes. I’d like to have brought an owl, but Mr. Toadsworth gets sad when I’m not around so I couldn’t very well leave him behind. I hope he’ll be happy at Hogwarts. I wonder if they’ll have a good damp place for him to rest in the dormitories. What house do you think you’ll be in? Dad says all the bad eggs go to Slytherin. That’s where the dark wizards go so the teachers can keep an eye on them. Gryffindor would be pretty great, I like their colors, but I think I’ll probably end up in Hufflepuff like mum. Their house animal is a badger and I like badgers. We had one under the barn one year...”

Kuro hadn’t thought about houses. He’d heard about them, of course. His master had been proud of his Ravenclaw pedigree. “Ravenclaw is where the clever students go,” he had said. “The other houses are holding pens for the rabble.”

Kuro had a pretty firm idea where he was going: Slytherin. Like Charlie had said, it was where the criminals went, where dark wizards came from. He’d be lumped in with the rest of the thieves and thugs where he belonged.

Charlie continued to talk, barely pausing for breath, for another three hours as the British countryside slid past. She had grown up on a farm with her dad way out in the country where they raised magical beasts. Her dad was a muggle, but her mother had been a witch. Apparently there had been a hard fight with the ministry to let him keep the beasts when her mother had died. Muggles aren’t supposed to know about wizard things. Charlie had been a loophole, though, because she was a witch living on the farm, so she was the witch in charge and her dad was technically just a caretaker. She said it was a ridiculous rule because her dad had fought in the war just like the wizards. He fought dark wizards on the back of a unicorn named Elwood carrying a sword that her mother had enchanted for him. 

She told him of the menagerie of beasts that she’d cared for over the years, from the strange petrifying chicken-lizard creatures called cockatrices, to the now sway-backed unicorn whose poop smells like cotton candy, to the invisible flying horses called thestrals. “They’re not actually invisible,” said Charlie of the thestrals. “You just can’t see them. Dad says it’s different. I wish I could see them, but you can only see them if you’ve seen someone die, so I don’t really want to see them, but I kind of wish I could. I tried to see one by getting it really muddy once, but it’s like my eyes kept sliding off it. My wand has a thestral hair in it want to see?”

She whipped a wand out of her bag so quickly that Kuro Jumped up on his seat and sheltered Graeae with his body. Kuro was extremely uncomfortable with how nonchalantly she waved it around as she spoke. “My dad made it for me the old fashioned way. We planted an oak tree when my mom died and let it grow around thestral hairs. We chopped off a branch at the beginning of summer and he made it into a really nice wand for me. He says it’s better than the mass produced wands cause I already have a connection with the wood and the animal and all that and don’t have to spend a whole day waving around sticks that don’t know me to find one that works. What’s yours like?”

Kuro sighed inwardly. He knew his wasn’t going to be as impressive as the other kid’s. Charlie’s was long, and strong and beautifully polished and stained. It looked like her dad had put a lot of love into crafting it. He rummaged in his trunk for where he had tucked the wand, pulled out the shirt that he had wrapped around wand and unrolled it, exposing his bent and knotty twig.

“Is that really a wand?” Charlie said. 

“Yep.” he managed to get his first word in since he had met the girl. 

“What’s inside of it?”

“Elf hair, I think.” 

“Like a house-elf? Never heard of that in a wand...” 

Charlie was cut off before another dissertation could get started by their cabin door sliding open. 

“Good afternoon. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt,” said a voice with an accent that would bankrupt most people to achieve, “but we thought it would be ever so nice to become acquainted with our fellow first-years before we arrived.”

Kuro recognized the pompous tone of the girl from the broom store. He looked up to see her perfect flowing locks cascading over crisp new robes. She was flanked by two equally well groomed young women. “This is Merissa Kleppmann, and Sara Mahdavi.” She gestured gracefully at her partners before introducing herself. “And I am Evelyn Lemieux. Pleased to make… your… acquaintance.”

Evelyn’s well rehearsed speech stumbled to a halt as she actually took the time to look at who she was addressing. Her perfect manner crumpled as she surveyed the contents of the cabin: she cringed at the mangy cat; her eyes bulged with disgust at the enormous toad; she looked pityingly upon the fashionless passengers; and she sighed openly at Kuro’s sad-looking wand. She did not, however, seem to recognize Kuro in the slightest. He was unsurprised, and a little relieved.

“Hi,” said Kuro making no effort to hide his dislike. Charlie just stared in stunned silence.

“Well,” Evelyn’s airs of grace had all but dissolved, but she forced a smile. “I suppose we’ll see you at school.”

She slid the door closed and whisked back down the hallway with the other girls following close behind.

Charlie’s mouth had started moving again but it took a moment for it to form words. “Did… you… see… her… hair?” She grabbed her own fraying braids and threw herself down on her bench and bemoaned the cruel fates that had cursed her with her haystack hair.

“I could get some of it for you,” Kuro said coldly, still glaring after Evelyn. 

“Really?” Charlie’s eyes were bulging with delight at the idea.

“She’s got more than enough, I think.” Kuro smiled with grim pleasure at the idea of lopping off a lock. “She wouldn’t miss one ringlet.”

“Oh my god you would be my best friend forever.”  

A knock on their door interrupted any plotting they might have done. An elderly witch pushing a trolley laden with snacks and treats and candy opened the door. “Anything from the cart dears?” she said sweetly.

“Not for me.” said Kuro politely. He had only a single galeon to his name and he was not about to spend it. 

Charlie dug in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small assortment of bronze knuts and silver sickles. “I’ll have a bang-pop. No, a box of every-flavoured beans. No, a chocolate frog. Do you have chocolate frogs? I’d like a chocolate frog.” She held out her hand and let the witch pick through the loose change. 

Charlie held the chocolate frog with delight and thanked the trolley witch excessively. “Oh I love these things. I never get them up at the farm. Why didn’t you get anything? Did you bring snacks?”

“No,” said Kuro glumly. The cart full of food had made him notice that his stomach was starting to rumble. 

“Didn’t your parents send you with anything at all?” Charlie was appalled at the negligence. 

“My…” Kuro tried to think of something plausible. “Uncle… he can be a bit forgetful sometimes.”

“That is unacceptable,” Charlie said crossly. “Here, my dad sent a sandwich. I’ll share it with you. We’ll have the frog for dessert.”

Kuro attempted to refuse, but Charlie was insistent. She tore the already mangled sandwich in two and forced it upon him. It was probably the best slightly squashed bologna sandwich he’d ever had and he said so. 

After finishing the sandwich, Charlie opened the gold packaging for her frog with reverence. “Get ready to catch it,” she said as the top burst open. 

The little brown frog leaped into the air and Kuro moved to intercept its escape but it was snached from the air by a long, sticky, pink tongue. Mr. Toadsworth chewed twice and swallowed the chocolate treat down, and belched loudly. 

There was a quiet pause as the two children stared at each other in disbelief, before exploding with laughter. They laughed so long and hard that Kuro’s tummy hurt by the end and they were both panting.

  
Kuro looked over at the strange, talkative farm-girl, still giggling to herself and admonishing her pet, and thought that he might have made an ally that afternoon, maybe even a friend.


	8. The Sorting Hat

It was dusk by the time the train finally rolled into the station. Kuro and Charlie were both starving and hoped loudly that there would be food waiting at the far end. They piled off the train into the throng of excited students, all of them now wearing the uniform black robes of hogwarts. It was like a swarm of bats.

A booming voice drowned out the din of the crowd. “First-years, this way please,” hollered an enormous man, twice the height of any student and built like the train they just been riding. He had a massive, tangled mane of dark hair and a beard so large you could barely see his eyes.  “Leave your things. They’ll be taken up for you.”

It took a bit of prodding from the upper-year students to get the younger ones to approach and follow the giant as he led them around the train and down to a set of docks. Kuro had never seen a lake up-close before, and while the rest of the children gasped in awe at the great castle high on a bluff across the lake, with its towering spires, soaring arches, and spans of battlements, Kuro was looking with great trepidation at the inky black water.

“Everyone hop in a boat,” said the giant gesturing to a collection of small wooden rowboats that were waiting for them. “Sit still and don’t go dangling anything in the water. Don’t want to make anything down there curious.”

His words were not at all comforting. Kuro edged toward an empty boat and climbed cautiously inside, barely making the water ripple from his motion. Charlie was apparently not so unsettled by boats and hopped in beside him and, in Kuro’s estimation, nearly capsized the boat. They were joined by a couple other students and, once everyone was settled, the boats set off under their own power toward the castle.

The evening was cool and mist was rising off the lake. The boats left wispy trails as they cut through the growing haze toward the distant cliff face. The castle loomed large over them as they approached. It seemed a massive, impenetrable fortress. Kuro was having trouble understanding why the students were so excited to be inside. It more fit the description of Azkaban Prison than a school.

They passed into a cave obscured by hanging ivy and through a long tunnel before coming to rest along a long stone landing. The giant hauled himself out of his boat and greeted a comically small man with a pointed hat and matching olive green robes. “Here you are Professor Flitwick, they’re all yours.” The giant waved to the students and trudged up the steps, five at a time.

The children giggled a bit at the tiny man, who was even shorter than Kuro, who himself only came up to the nose of the next shortest student. However their giggling was cut off by a powerful and commanding voice. “Good evening first-year students!” The tiny man had placed the tip of his wand to his neck and cast a spell, amplifying his voice many times over. “I would like to welcome each and every one of you to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am Professor Flitwick, Deputy Headmaster here at Hogwarts”

He gazed down over the collected students from the stairs where he was standing with paternal warmth. “Tonight, you shall be sorted into one of four houses. They are Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. These will be your dormitories, but they are more than that. They will be like your families. You will attend classes with your house, you will share victories, and suffer failures and punishments alongside your housemates.”

Kuro shuddered at the word ‘punishments.’ It was bad enough being whipped for his own mistakes. He did not like the idea of suffering for those of others.

Professor Flitwick continued, “Points are awarded to each house for excellent behavior, and great performance, and points are deducted for any rule-breaking. At the end of the year, the scores will be tallied and the winning house shall be awarded the House Cup. A great honour.”

Kuro was very confused. “Points?” he thought. “Points aren’t punishment. Points aren’t anything.” He looked around at his fellow students. They did look like a rather coddled lot. He tried to imagine Evelyn enduring one of his master’s punishments. He couldn’t, it was too absurd. Perhaps points were how normal children were punished.

“Now if you will all form a line and follow me into the great hall, we shall commence the sorting ceremony.” The diminutive professor turned and started marching up the stone staircase.

Kuro fell into line and listened to the worried whispers of the students around him.

“How long does it take? I’m starving.”

“I hear it hurts really badly.”

“I hope I’m in Gryffindor, I hear that’s where all the best wizards go.”

“Do you think there’s a written test? I didn’t study.”

“My brother told me that if you don’t do it right, you end up in Hufflepuff.”

Great cheers erupted as the new students entered the great hall. The older students were all sitting at long rows of tables. Long silk banners hung above them blowing in an unseen breeze, indicating each house: crimson with a golden lion for Gryffindor, green with a silver serpent for Slytherin, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, and bright yellow with a black and white badger for Hufflepuff. The hall was lit by hundreds of candles floating a few meters in the air which bobbed around as if on the surface of a lake. The high, vaulted ceiling was obscured by a grand illusion of the clear, starry night sky outside. It was magnificent.

There was a raised stage with a single, lonely wooden stool on it. Behind and above that, stood the head table where the teachers sat sipping wine and considering the new batch of students. The giant from the boats was there, so too was Headmistress McGonagall. Kuro shrunk beneath her gaze as it passed over him.

Professor Flitwick climbed up onto the stage and then onto another wooden box so he could be seen above the first-years. The new students giggled a bit, but the rest of the room fell silent. They apparently held the small man in high regard. “Professor Longbottom, if you would be so kind as to bring out the hat.”

A broad, tall man with wavy blond hair carrying a very old and ragged leather wizard’s hat stepped onto the stage. The hat was so worn and damaged that many of its patches had patches sewn on to them. He placed it carefully on the stool.

There was an intake of breath from the upper years and a murmur of confusion from the new students. For several long moments, nothing happened. Then the hat twitched, it stretched and a large tear that hadn’t been mended opened wide, almost as if the hat were yawning. It twisted from side to side like it was stretching out after a long nap, and then it started to sing.

“Good evening, I am the sorting hat  
Sorry if I look a little flat  
For a thousand year and a hundred more  
I have sorted students by the score

Though I’m torn and thick with dust  
Your fate in me you must entrust  
I’ll tell you in which house you belong  
But first I ask you to hear my song

For those who aim to get ahead  
And obscurity is what you dread  
Slytherin is the right place for you  
To prove what you can really do

For those who most value intellect  
And wit and learning you respect  
If fear of failure keeps you awake  
In Ravenclaw a home you'll make

For those who fear to be alone  
It's Hufflepuff that will be your home  
A place for a kind and loyal soul  
And it’s dedication they extole

For those who hold strength and courage dear  
And all who wish to conquer fear  
If it’s cowardice that makes you sore  
Then you’ll end up in Gryffindor

Just put me on and don’t be scared  
In all this time I’ve never erred  
I can see your hopes and all your fears  
All that you hide between your ears

In one house you’ll find your family  
I’ll sort you out just wait and see  
Try me on and just like that,  
I’ll tell you where to hang your hat.”

The hat settled again and was still. Professor Longbottom picked it up off the stool, and Professor Flitwick began to speak. “Come up and sit on the stool when your name is called. The hat will be placed on your head and sort you into your house,” he paused dramatically before announcing the first name “Mary Akinwande!”

There was no movement at all for a moment and everyone started looking around for who had been called. Slowly a girl with very dark skin and a lot of very curly black hair climbed onto the platform and sat on the stool. She was visibly shaking and her eyes were so wide with fear that they looked like they might fall out of her head. She sat frozen in terror as the hat was lowered onto her head. It was much too big for her and it covered her eyes completely. The room was silent and still as the hat sat motionless for several seconds. Then it bellowed “Hufflepuff!” and a bright house crest appeared on her robes, and the room erupted in cheers.

With a bit of prodding from Professor Longbottom, Mary Akinwande slid off the stool and shuffled her way to the Hufflepuff Tables. There she was met with warm handshakes and hugs from the many upper year students.

One after another, students were sorted. Sometimes the hat seemed to ponder over the decision for a long while, others it barely touched their head before shouting their house. Charlie was sorted into Hufflepuff, like she had guessed. Evelyn was sorted into Ravenclaw, and Kuro was happy for it. Of all the houses, it seemed least likely that he’d end up there.

Kuro noticed that Merissa, one of the two girls that had been following Evelyn on the train had also came up Gryffindor. She seemed delighted at first but a look of deep disdain from Evelyn cut her down. Kuro sensed that their friendship had ended in that moment.

The sorting went on and the crowd of students dwindled. Soon there were only two of them left and kuro wondered if his name had even been put on the list. The girl next to him leaned over and whispered “I’m always last. I hate it.”

“Valerie Zimmermann!” Flitwick announced.

“Not this time.” Kuro forced an encouraging smile.

Valerie went to Slytherin, and Kuro stood alone in front of a room of hundreds, feeling very shabby and exposed. “Kuro!” Professor Flitwick announced at last.

“Potter didn’t even bother to make up a last name,” Kuro thought as he climbed up to the stool and sat down. “Bloody auror.”

Kuro could see the scroll Flitwick was reading from. His name had been inserted in at the bottom in different handwriting. He looked out over the crowd, who had started to lose their enthusiasm for the event. He picked out Charlie, who was beaming and talking to a boy next to her. He found Evelyn, sneering and making what he assumed were comments at his expense to her neighbor. He also recognized two other faces at the Slytherin table, and worse, they recognized him.

Staring up at him with furious grimaces were the broom thieves, Bella and Seph. They locked eyes for a moment before the he was blinded by the Hat. It was so large that it rested on Kuro’s chin.

Kuro knew his place. It was with the other thieves in Slytherin, but he wished desperately that it weren’t true. He didn’t expect he’d survive the week with those two in his house.

The did not welcome Kuro’s assumption’s though. “Think you know better than I do, do you?” a small voice whispered in his ear. “Think this is that simple?”

Kuro clutched the stool and fought the instinct to run from the room as the hat pondered his fate.

“Curious, very curious,” the hat said in his ear. “Isn’t that what people keep saying about you? Hmmm, quite true. You are a curious case. There are shadows in your mind, secrets I cannot see into. But there is light there, too, yes. A glimmer, if you look hard enough. There’s only one place for people like you.”

Kuro waited for the inevitable.

“Hufflepuff!” the hat bellowed.

Applause and cheers erupted as the hat was taken from Kuro’s head. He slid from the chair and walked numbly off the stage. Kuro hadn’t even considered Hufflepuff. That was a house for nice people like Charlie. Not criminals. He wondered if there’d been a mistake.

He had only made it halfway to the tables when Charlie reached him, grinning from ear to ear. “Brilliant!” she shouted and hauled him by the arm back to where she had been seated.

He didn’t get much of a chance to get settled before Professor McGonagall stood and addressed the students. “Before we begin the feast, I have a few announcements.”

The room fell quiet except for Charlie, who an upper year girl quickly silenced by clapping a hand over her mouth.

“As has become something of a Hogwarts tradition,” her stern tone turned slightly sardonic “We have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.” An unexplained chuckle from the upper-year students rolled across the chamber. “Everyone please welcome Professor Crawley. We hope your tenure here will be long and fruitful.”

A fairly young, earnest looking witch stood and bowed slightly to the assembly. Her short hair was parted in the middle and flipped up in little horn-like tufts at the side. She wore a grey duelling jacket and trousers rather than the robes of the rest of the teachers. Her nose was ponted and she pursed her lips in an odd way. With her wide, probing eyes and large horn-rimmed glasses, the looked something like an owl. She presented a stiff smile, bowed slightly, and sat.

Professor McGonagall continued, “Our caretaker, Mr. Filch, would like to inform students that the fourth level of the dungeon is flooded due to an issue with the kraken and is out of bounds until further notice. He would also like to remind students that all Weasley products are banned on school premises and will be confiscated if discovered. Finally, I am pleased to announce that the astronomy tower has been restored after last year’s incident, and will be available to classes.”

“Now if you would all rise and join me in singing the school song.” The Headmistress raised her wand and everyone stood. She began to wave her wand as if conducting and orchestra, and music began to play.

Kuro and the other new children looked around at each other, baffled. They didn’t know the words, or even the tune, but as the chorus of older students began to sing, somehow so did they.

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,  
Teach us something please,  
Whether we be old and bald,  
Or young with scabby knees,”

Kuro didn’t understand how, but he knew the words. More than that, he knew the melody, and the parts he was meant to be singing. He heard his small voice join the growing chorus.

“Our heads could do with filling,  
With some interesting stuff,  
For now they're bare and full of air,  
Dead flies and bits of fluff,”

The whole school was singing in perfect harmony. The high voices of the young first years soared like birds in spring. The steady tenors and altos of the older boys and girl filled the hall with warmth and enthusiasm, and the Deeper voices of the older boys filled it out adding a strength and power to the anthem.

“So teach us things worth knowing,  
Bring back what we've forgot,  
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,  
And learn until our brains all rot.”

The last word rang out with a triumphant crescendo, and the school cheered. Professor McGonagall looked very pleased and lowered her wand.

At least one student wasn’t cheering, though. Kuro was staring in horrified awe at the Headmistress. The display of power she had just shown both frightened and impressed him. She had influenced the minds and actions of several hundred students, and had done it casually, without words or effort. Kuro understood why Potter had made this woman Kuro’s warden.

As the cheering died, McGonagall raised her wand once more. “And now, the feast,” she said. With a flowing wave of her wand, plates and platters full of food appeared on the tables like blossoming flowers. There was roast beef, and turkey, and ham, and chicken. There were potatoes in boiled, fried, mashed, and roasted form. Freshly baked buns and rolls filled the air with their irresistible aroma. And vegetables of all shapes and colours, some of which Kuro had never seen, were piled high on steaming platters.

There was more food than Kuro had ever seen, ever even imagined. The cruelty of his former life was laid bare before him. He had struggled for every scrap of food he’d ever eaten. He had gone without meals, been sick and feeble with hunger, and with the wave of a wand that woman could feed hundreds. It was horribly unfair.

Charlie pulled Kuro out of his reflections. “Aren’t you hungry,” she said around mouthfuls of gravy-soaked turkey.

“I…” Kuro said. He was very hungry. He shook off his anguish and dug in. He piled his plate high with everything within reach. An older student shouted some words of advice to save room for dessert, but Kuro couldn’t help himself. He ate until he was near bursting.

Introductions went around the table. There were nine new Hufflepuff students, five girls and four boys. The boy that had been shoved roughly through the barrier at platform nine and three-quarters was one of them. His name was Oliver Kagen. He had a round face, a round middle, round glasses and a large round smile. He had been expecting expecting to end up in Gryffindor, like his brother. “My whole family’s been Gryffindors for generations he said. I should be sad,” he lowered his voice as if to tell a secret. “But I’m not. The hat said I needed a place where I’m not standing in a shadow.” He looked over to the Gryffindor table where his large, handsome brother had his arm draped over one of the girls shoulders and looked to have the attention of half the house as he told a boastful looking story. “He’s the Gryffindor keeper, won them the cup the last two years. He’ll probably make Prefect next year.”

“Looks like kind of a jerk,” said Charlie loudly.

“Nooo,” defended Oliver Loudly. “I mean… a bit. What did the hat say to you?” Oliver tried to change the subject.

Edward Lupin, a shy sickly, carefully parted sandy hair and green eyes that remained fixed on the table in front of him told them that he, too, had expected to be in Gryffindor. He hoped his uncle wouldn’t be too disappointed. He said the hat had refused the idea and told him he'd do better just being himself rather than trying to be someone he’s not.

Mary Akinwande, the frightened girl who had been called first said sheepishly “It told me to stop praying so loudly so it could see who I was underneath.” She fidgeted with a gold cross that was hanging from her neck. “But I don’t really know anything about houses, or magic.”

Charlie and the remaining first-year boy, Shaun Cassidy said that it hadn’t told them anything. It just sat on their head and yelled “Hufflepuff.” They seemed disappointed that it hadn’t spoken to them.

“What about you Kuro?” Charlie asked. “It took forever on you. What did it say.”

Kuro wasn’t sure what to say. It had said that there was a place for people like him, but this didn’t really seem like it. All ofthe other students seemed nice, and friendly, if a little weird. “It said I was a hard case, and that my brain was poorly lit. I think it just put me in the house with the fewest boys in it.”

“Nonsense!” The first-years jumped as tall, burly older girl interrupted loudly. “The sorting hat is always right. If it put you in Hufflepuff, then belong here with the freaks and weirdos as much as any of us.” The girl was broad and strong, and had slightly pointed teeth that made her look part troll. She wore a brightly polished silver badge on her robes with the house crest on it. “Welcome to Hufflepuff. I’m Meredith Thrump, one of your prefects.” She shook each of the children’s hands vigorously in greeting. “I’m to look after you first years, so let me know if there’s anything you need.”

Kuro wasn’t sure if it was comforting or worrying that they had such a monster of a girl watching over them.

By the time dessert arrived, Kuro was so full he could barely manage a spoonful of each flavour of ice cream, and had to pass entirely on the cakes and puddings. Along with dessert, also came a parade of spectral figures. A stream of ghosts wafted through the walls of the hall, evoking screams of terror from some and gasps of delight from others.

A portly ghost in ancient looking monk’s robes drifted over to the Hufflepuff’s table and was greeted by many of the upper years.

“Hello Friar, come meet the new students” Meredith waved the spirit over. “First, years, this is our house Ghost, the Fat Friar.”

The spectral priest gave a deep bow. “Bless you Meredith. It is an honour to make your acquaintance, children,” he said in a slow, haunting drone. “My name was Brother Augustus, in life, but most just call me Friar. I encourage you to do the same.”

Kuro waved and went back to sampling the ice cream. Most of other new students, who had not lived with any dead people before, continued to gawk and stare at the monk. Mary was clutching the cross on her neck tightly and looked like the blood had drained from her face. Her parents were muggles and, apparently, she had not been told about the ghosts.

“I heard,” continued the friar, “that a young boy named Kuro had joined my house, is that correct?”

Kuro looked up again, his mouth full of ice cream. “Mmm?” he said, worried at how he had already gained the ghost’s attention.

“Ah, there you are, my son.” He floated to Kuro and made and placed a hand on Kuro’s shoulder. It felt like a winter wind was blowing through his cloak. “Father John asked me to check in on you and to send his regards. He was most upset to see you go.”

Kuro swallowed. “Um...” he said, not quite sure to respond “Thank you.” Kuro was glad to hear that his friend was alright after the fight with Potter.

“Not at all, my son. Not at all.” The Friar then turned to Mary and drifted toward her through the table “Bless you child,” he crossed himself and beamed a warm smile at the girl. “So few of the faith, here. Come to me anytime if you are in need of council.” He crossed himself again and drifted off to welcome the other students.

Mary sat motionless. A small trickle of unswallowed ice cream had started to drip out of the corner of her mouth. “This…” She stuttered after the ghost was out of sight. “This place is completely mad.”

The feast ended and the children were led to their houses. Meredith bragged that everyone else had to climb towers or hide in dungeons, but they were only one flight down, and right beside the kitchen, in case anyone ever needed a snack.

Meredith brought them to a large room filled with racks of barrels stacked floor to ceiling. She counted her way along the second row to a specific barrel, and knocked out a rhythm on it to the tune of “Helga Hufflepuff”. A rack of barrels slid away revealing a tunnel to the Hufflepuff chambers.

Inside was the warmest and most inviting room Kuro had ever been in. There were two fireplaces burning low, filling the room with a drowsy warmth. Soft rugs covered much of the wooden floor. Huge, overstuffed armchairs and sofas littered the room. Warm yellow light filled the chamber from many hanging oil lamps that somehow made the room look sunlit, despite the darkness visible through the small round windows high up on the walls.

The boys and girls were divided and led to their dormitories. Each year had their own room. The first-year boys, Kuro, Shaun, Edward, and Oliver, entered theirs to find their things had already been unpacked into their individual wardrobes and each had a sturdy mahogany four post bed of their own. The beds had sheets and drapes in the house colours and were so soft that they collectively proclaimed that they would never leave them again.

Kuro introduced the others to Graeae, who was already sleeping on Kuro’s bed. Edward also had an animal. He had been given an owl, but it had to stay in the owlery and wasn’t allowed in the rooms much to everyone’s disappointment. A startled shriek echoed up from the girls dormitories indicating that Mary had been introduced to Mr. Toadsworth.

  
Shaun and tried to keep everyone up with excited chatter and enthusiastic speculation about their classes and year to come, but they were all too exhausted from the journey, and overstuffed from the meal to keep their eyes open. They were all asleep before their heads hit their pillows.


	9. The Potions Master

Classes started the very next day. Charlie convinced Kuro that they should race to their first class. This meant, of course, that they were both late for it.

Hogwart’s is a maze of hallways and stairwells that shift and move as they please. The pair started off in the right direction, but without the guidance of their prefect, they became lost almost immediately and arrived to Transfiguration several minutes after class had started. They stumbled in noisily, panting and laughing. 

The laughing stopped abruptly as they saw the expression on Professor McGonagall's face. The headmistress was the instructor for Transfiguration. The look of judgement and displeasure she gave the pair could have curdled milk, and her words would have frozen it solid. “I do not accept tardiness in my classroom. One point shall be taken for each of you from Hufflepuff. It will be much more should there be a repeat occurrence. I am very disappointed.”

Kuro was then made very aware of why the loss of points was considered a punishment. Seven heads turned to him and scowled furiously. The real punishment would be carried out by members of his own house later.

The lesson did not improve after that. McGonagall filled boards with notes and arcane symbols that barely made any sense. Kuro realized halfway through the class that he was the only one not scribbling down every word onto his parchment, and by that point he was hopelessly behind and several boards had already been erased.

History of Magic followed and was an improvement over Transmutation only in the fact that everyone else in the class seemed to dislike it as much as Kuro. 

It was taught by a Ghost, Professor Binns, who had been teaching the class for so long that he referred to some of the topics they were going to cover as though he were present for them.  He was incredibly dull. He had taught the exact same lesson the exact same way for ages untold and there was a strong sense that the class would have continued, unchanged, if the students hadn’t bothered to show up. It was rumored that McGonagall had tried to replace him at one point, but he kept turning up to teach anyway, talking over the other professor and making it impossible to learn anything.

Binns spoke almost entirely in dates and names of events and wizards long dead. He started with the invention of the wand and worked forward in what felt like real-time. 

“The wand was discovered by Nebetah, commonly considered the first witch, in spring of 1174 B.C.E. or year zero, in the common wizarding era or W.E., the proliferation of which facilitated the 1151 B.C.E. or 23 W.E. uprising of wizarding kind over their elven oppressors who had used their powers to enslave magically endowed humans for much of pre-history. The ensuing battles left the elven population decimated and by 1107 B.C.E. or 67 W.E. they had surrendered to the wizarding rebellion and sworn obedience to them in exchange for their lives as described in the treaty of Abydos, signed later that same year by the leaders of both factions, the wizard, Nirari and the elf lord, Nyarlathotep, and the treaty is still held today by the descendants of those elves in the form of the common house elf, and if you turn to page twenty-seven of your text you will find the lineage of Nebetah and Nirari which I shall quiz you on next week…”

Having no need for air, Binns proceeded without pausing for breath, question, or comment for the entire hour. His voice was a steady monotone that was impossible to focus on and lulled the class into a half-conscious trance. He assigned more reading in the first class than Kuro had done in his entire life and a twenty-four inch composition on the origin of wizarding governance due the following monday. 

The only positive outcome of History of Magic was that Mary was able to get accustomed to the presence of ghosts. A single class from Professor Binns would effectively drain anyone of their trepidations towards the undead. It is difficult to be afraid of something so incredibly boring.

Following History, was Arithmancy. It was miles more entertaining than History of Magic, but so were slug races. 

The Professor, Septima Vector, was enthusiastic and animated, but appeared to also be quite mad. She would walk only in straight lines and pivoted on the spot to turn at very specific angles, which she would frequently stop the class to double-check with a large, brass, protractor. 

Her robes were vibrant crimson with patterns traced all over them in gold. They matched the decoration of the classroom such that if she stood too close to the wall, she could easily be mistaken for one of the many tapestries. The desks were arranged according to a complex set of mathemagical rules resulting in them being scattered throughout the room and facing in all different directions. Kuro got stuck with a bad desk and had to sit backwards on his chair for most of the class to see Professor Vector.

She spoke only in sentences with a prime number of syllables. “It is the most effective method of recollecting whole concepts, as they cannot be easily subdivided,” she explained.

Whether or not that was true was hard to say, but the way she was constantly counting on her fingers as she spoke was very distracting.

Arithmancy had only recently been added to the first-year schedule recently. Vector told them that “The Headmistress agrees that numerology is fundamental to many magical pursuits and a firm grounding in the subject will be invaluable to your future studies.” 

Despite Vector being vibrant and encouraging, the subject matter was impenetrable. They spent their first class learning the circumstances under which one plus one could equal three, and had been promised that the next lesson would go on to cover the various ways you could add two and two together. 

The students left with their heads spinning. 

By the end of the first day Kuro’s eyes were sore from reading, his brain ached from thinking, and his hand was cramped from writing. He already felt two days behind and couldn’t imagine how he was going to actually pass any subjects. The only motivation he had was to stay out of Azkaban, and a quiet cell in the middle of the ocean was sounding pretty compelling.

None of the other children were having as much trouble as he was. Even Mary, who had a muggle family, seemed to be better suited to wizardry than Kuro. All of them had been to schools of one kind or another before. They had read more than the occasional discarded newspaper and had written longer compositions than “IOU 4 sickles and 1 toasted corned beef sandwich on French loaf.” 

Most of them were also openly bitter about the point loss. Edward, the shy boy with the carefully parted hair, offered some comfort. He said that his uncle had lost tons of points for his house in his first year and they had still won the house cup. Charlie seemed to have forgotten all about it. She was talking endlessly about their classes that day and the students they had met and the careful balance between supper and pudding. It was comforting to have her enthusiastic rambling, but difficult to try to do homework with her nearby.

The next day’s classes were marginally better subjects but something managed to ruin each of them.

Herbology, which they shared with the Gryffindors, was a pleasant change of pace from sitting at desks in dimly lit classrooms. It was held in a set of greenhouses and they spent most of their time working with dirt, and feeding and watering plants. Their teacher was Professor Longbottom, head of Gryffindor house. He was tall and handsome, with a toothy grin and flowing blond hair. He kept the sleeves of his robes rolled up to his elbows, exposing the tanned, strong forearms of a man who works with his hands. Many of the girls were quite taken with him, and swooned when he flashed his smile.

Kuro discovered that he was terrible at Herbology. He had no experience with growing things in Knockturn and was too small to effectively wrestle many of the uncooperative plants into submission. He enjoyed that first class, regardless. Partly, it was nice to get outside and get his hands dirty. Also Charlie talked through the whole class, telling him stories of her farm back home. Professor Longbottom joked that he should nip off to the pub and let Charlie teach the class for him.

Kuro almost thought he was going to enjoy the class after the first day, but at the end of it, Professor Longbottom held him back. “Hey, Kuro,” he said in a casual friendly manner. “I’m a friend of Harry’s. He asked me to keep an eye on you. My door is always open. If you need anyone to talk to, just let me know.”

Kuro just glared. It was just as he had suspected. Potter had spies everywhere, waiting for him to let some secret slip. Waiting for him to feel safe and complacent and trusting.  

The only class the Hufflepuffs had with the Slytherins was Defense Against the Dark Arts. None of the slytherins said anything to Kuro, but he kept feeling dark glances shot his way and he wondered if Seph and Bella had told them of what had happened in that alley.

The class was taught Professor Crawley. She was young and slim. She wore the sort of doublet and trousers usually reserved for duelling, and always in shades of grey. She had a sharp, penetrating gaze and her horn-rimmed glasses had the effect of making her seem even more judgemental of everything she looked at. She reminded Kuro very much of an owl. 

“These early lessons can be quite dull, lots of theory and very little practice,” she admitted to the students at the start of the first class. “So I think it is important that we understand what we are working towards. By the end of this year, you should be able to block a simple offensive spell, protect yourself from an assortment of dangerous creatures, and diagnose the symptoms of several curses. Much of what we do, though, will be in preparation for your later years. By the end of your seventh year, you should be able to fend off a direct attack by a vampire, conjure a patronus, and defend yourself effectively against the three unforgivable curses. Let’s see who’s been reading ahead. Can anyone tell me one those three curses?”

The hand of a slytherin girl raised hesitantly. “Yes, Abigail is it? Go ahead” Crawley said.

Abigail stood and said “Avada Kedavra.” 

The words alone made some of the other students shudder. Kuro saw that Charlie had gone very quiet and pale at its mention. Professor Crawley seemed to be surveying the class. “Very good,” she said. “Two points to Slytherin for being brave enough to answer the first question of the year. Can anyone tell me what it does.”

At the promise of points, hands shot up across the class. One of the Hufflepuff girls was picked to answer. “It’s the killing curse,” she said. “It… kills people”

“Correct, thank you. One point to Hufflepuff. Can anyone name another?”

“The imperius curse!” Shouted a Slytherin boy.

“Correct, but no points if you speak out of turn,” replied Crawley. “What does it do?”

Another Slytherin was chosen to answer. “It controls your mind, you have to do whatever the caster tells you.”

“That’s right, a point to Slytherin.” replied the professor. “And you may not even be able to remember doing it. What is the last one? Yes, Vincent, Go ahead.”

“The Cruciatus Curse,” said a Slytherin boy proudly. 

“Well done. Another point for Slytherin. Last chance for points, let’s give the Hufflepuffs a chance.” 

Kuro knew the effects of the curse all too well and he saw a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his housemates for the loss yesterday. He raised his hand high.

“Go ahead, Kuro,” sait the professor.

Kuro stood and cleared his throat. He felt a little shaky with so many eyes on him, but he tried his best not to let his voice waver. “It fills your body with every bad feeling there is. It’s like all of your skin is being burned, and sand is being ground into your eyes while every bone in your body breaks, and your joints are twisted apart and your muscles tear. And you want to scream but it’s like you’re drowning and you can’t breathe at all.”

The class went deathly silent and Kuro feared that he had said something very wrong. Professor Crawley had a look of deep pity on her face. She found her voice after a few too many moments. “That is absolutely correct. Very thorough.” She said pasting on the same congratulatory smile that she had for the other students. “Four points to Hufflepuff.”

She continued the lesson as if all was normal, but sadness crept into her normally aggressive eyes whenever she looked at Kuro. The rest of the students seemed to be very uncomfortable around him, as well. He guessed that most of them had never had the curse cast on them before. Perhaps they had never misbehaved as badly as he had.

At the end of class, Crawley also asked Kuro to stay behind. “Kuro,” she said sympathetically. “It sounded to me like you knew what that curse felt like, yourself. Is that true?”

“Yes,” he answered hesitantly, worrying that he was somehow in trouble.

“It’s okay,” her stern features had melted away and she looked sad and caring. “I just want to know, the person who cast it. Do you know who they are?”

Kuro was getting suspicious. “Yes.” he said again, uncertain if it were the right answer.

“Do you know where they are?” She asked.

Kuro thought hard about what he should say. He didn’t want to give away any information about his master, but he was pretty sure he knew what she wanted to hear. “Azkaban Prison,” he replied.

Professor Crawley visibly relaxed at the answer. “Have you talked to anyone about your… experience?” She said awkwardly.

“No.” Kuro couldn’t imagine anyone caring to know.

“It can help,” she said putting her hand on his shoulder. “Believe me... Can you keep a secret?”

If there was anything that Kuro was good at, it was keeping secrets. He nodded.

“I was under the imperius curse once. Having someone to talk to afterward really helped. If you needed someone, you could tell me. Okay?”

Another spy. She was trying to trade a secret for a secret, but he wasn’t going to fall for it. Kuro faked a smile and thanked her before running off to potions class.

Potions should have been Kuro’s best subject. He had helped Phineas with enough concoctions that he knew how to follow a recipe. Unfortunately, they shared the class with the Ravenclaws.

Evelyn and the insipid posse that clung to her were model students. They were pretty and clever and all came with pristine instrument sets for potion making. They made the Hufflepuffs look shabby and dim-witted by comparison. 

The potions teacher was Professor Slughorn. He was a portly old man with a very bald head and a warm smile. Despite his age and girth, he moved around the classroom with a bounce in his step and spoke in a bright and bubbly tone. He was patient, knowledgeable and entirely contemptuous. 

Actual accomplishment in his class seemed irrelevant. He was much more interested in pedigree than performance which he made extremely clear in his first class. As he called names on the roster for attendance, he stopped to quiz students if he found a name familiar. He had passed casually through most of the list before his eyes brightened and he called, “Evelyn Lemieux.”

“Present,” Evelyn replied as all in attendance should celebrate the fact.

“Isn’t your father with the ministry?” Slughorn smiled broadly at her.

“Yes,” she replied haughtily, “So is Mother. Father is the Minister of Mysteries and mother works with the Enchantment Research Committee.”

“Very good.” Professor Slughorn smiled broadly at Evelyn, looking her over as if she was a prize he had won. “I’m sure we can expect great things from you, my dear. Oh! Right next to you on the list, Edward Lupin.” Slughorn practically burst with excitement. “I knew your father in the war, fought beside him. A great man. Truly a great man. I also taught your godfather, you know, showed him a thing or two in his school days. I’ll bet you’ll follow right in their footsteps eh, lad?” He gave Edward a knowing wink and a playful nudge with his elbow. 

“Yes sir. Thank you sir,” he replied politely, not lifting his eyes from his shoes. Edward was somewhat less prideful than Evelyn and looked ready to run from the class before it had even begun. Extra attention was apparently not something Edward was angling for.

Slughorn reached the bottom of the list and decided to interrogate Kuro on his breeding, as well. “Kuro, Japanese name isn’t it, it means ninth son, I believe. I speak a little Japanese from my time as an advisor to the Minister of Foreign Magics.” He paused so the room had time to be appropriately impressed. “Your family name is missing on roster.Can I fill it in?”

Kuro contemplated lying. It was his chance to give himself a name and a family. He even thought for a moment about saying Potter or Weasley just to upstage Evelyn. But Slughorn so enamoured with the rich or famous students, and so boastful of his own prestige that Kuro couldn’t stand the idea of pandering to him. “I don’t have one,” Kuro said flatly.

“Oh now that is unusual. I was once in Papua New Guinea in my youth, searching for a Ropen with Newt Scamandar, and the wizards there don’t have last names either. They say it protects them from certain dark magics.” Slughorn looked around the room to confirm that everyone was adequately interested in his story before turning back to Kuro. “Where are your parent’s from?”

“Don’t have any,” scowled Kuro. 

Slughorn seemed genuinely saddened by Kuro’s statement. His normally excited and bright attitude dulled a bit. “There are so many of you these past few years,” he mumbled to himself sadly. But he shook off his moment of sincerity and went back to Kuro. “Well done then making it to Hogwarts. Are you here on scholarship?”

“I’m here on parole.” Kuro glared and Slughorn choked on his next words before they emerged. 

It was a stupid thing to say. He had just exposed himself as a criminal to his new friends. He’d probably have to lie to smooth it over, but he couldn’t help enjoying the distressed expression on Slughorn’s face and his rapid retreat back to the front of the room.

That first class involved the brewing a pot of lengthening liquid. As they they powdered their weevil proboscises and stewed their jellyfish tendrils, Charlie scooted her stool closer to Kuro so she could talk to him privately. She looked as though she might explode if she didn’t ask him about what he’d said. “Is it true? Are you really here on parole? What did you do? Why didn’t you tell me before?” she whispered.

He didn’t like lying to Charlie, she trusted him implicitly despite his having done nothing to earn it. It made him very uncomfortable misleading her. “Well... I…” Kuro stammered. “It’s not exactly true, no. I mostly just said it because he was fussing over the rich kids with fancy names.” 

“Was he?” Charlie was surprised by the accusation. “I didn’t notice that. I kind of like him. He’s funny.”

Edward, who was sitting on the other side of Kuro had overheard them, and agreed with Kuro . “I was warned about him.” he mumbled. “He likes people with power.” Edward only spoke in short sentences most of the time as he seemed to always be concentrating on something. At the moment it should have been his pot of jellyfish parts, as it was boiling over.

Slughorn swept over to Edward. With a dash of giraffe hairs and a stir of the pot he had set it right. “There you are young Mr. Lupin. Keep at it. You’re doing well.” He then strode off to compliment Evelyn on her excellent progress.

It was a simple potion and Kuro was near the first to finish. He had his wooden spoon, several times longer than it had started, sitting on display awaiting evaluation well before class ended. Slughorn passed him several times as though he weren’t even there. 

The professor noticed Evelyn’s brew the moment it was complete. “Well done Miss Lemiuex! Well done indeed. Everyone have a look at this.” Slughorn was falling over himself to compliment her work and Evelyn was basking in the praise. He held up her spoon to show the class. It had doubled in length. 

He move throughout the class evaluating the length of spoons. When he came to the bench where Kuro, Charlie and Edward were sitting, he swept Kuro’s much elongated spoon off the desk and marvelled at it. “Fantastic, just fantastic. Top marks. Look at the length of it, I daresay I’ve not seen such an effective application of lengthening liquid in years. Five points to Hufflepuff.”

Kuro noticed that Evelyn was furious someone in the class was receiving higher praise than her. Kuro smiled smugly at her. His gloating was cut short however, as Slughorn continued. “Well done Mr. Lupin!” 

Kuro’s heart sank. Edward looked flustered and tried to correct the professor, but he seemed unable to say anything at all. He just kept staring at the spoon and opening and closing his mouth. Charlie was turning bright red at the injustice of it all and trying to organize the words that were attempting to pour out of her mouth into sentences. Slughorn noticed none of this. He just gave a great thumbs-up to Edward and moved on to other tables.

Edward looked utterly abashed. “I’m sorry Kuro. I didn’t mean to take credit. You deserved those points. Not me”

“It’s all right, Edward.” Kuro said resignedly, “Hufflepuff gets those points either way.” Kuro wasn’t overly bothered by being overlooked. He had a strong feeling that Slughorn was one professor that wouldn’t try to keep him after class. “Besides,” he continued, “I feel like I won something better than points.”  Kuro looked back to Evelyn who was still fuming. Kuro even thought he saw one of her perfect curls fall out of place. 


	10. The Bludger

Things got better and worse in equal measure as the weeks went on. Kuro had said too much and been too strange in class and people were starting to get suspicious and wary of him.  Rumours were starting to circulate, likely encouraged by the Slytherins, Seph and Bella. He was rumored to be dangerous, violent, unhinged and inhuman. Students became uncomfortable around him and even his roommates, Oliver and Shaun, had taken to locking their armoires. 

Edward Lupin was unbothered by the speculations. He and Kuro had struck up a partnership in potions class, where Edward was utterly hopeless. He had never so much as made a pot of tea at home and had difficulty following many of the instructions as he was colourblind and often couldn’t tell what colour his brews were. Kuro helped edward brew his potions, and Edward helped Kuro with his written homework, while Charlie provided running commentary. Edward was also easy to talk to. Being too shy to make eye contact or say more than a few sentences at a time, he never pried into Kuro’s past or noticed that Kuro didn’t look at him when he talked either.

Kuro found and unexpected ally in Mary Akinwande. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe the rumours. It was obvious to Kuro that she did. However, she had been the weird outcast in her classes muggle school. Her occasional accidental use of magic had earned her a couple of exorcisms, and made her a target for ridicule at school. So while she was obviously unnerved by Kuro, she would take the empty seat next to him at tables and partner with him in classes when no one else would. 

It began as a simple act of kindness, but they quickly became allies at school. Mary knew very little of the magical world and Kuro was happy to explain the oddities and practices where he could. Though he had a hard time justifying why they had to wear robes and write on parchment. Kuro, on the other hand, didn’t understand school. Mary helped him understand what he was supposed to do on assignments and would explain difficult passages in books to him. They bonded over a mutual dislike of writing with quills and soon found that they had become real friends.

Kuro’s most valuable advocate was Meredith Thrump, the Hufflepuff Prefect. She thought the idea of short, skinny, quiet Kuro being wicked or dangerous was laughable and scolded anyone who she caught giving him a sidelong glance. Being bigger and stronger than most of the seventh-year boys, she made quite a convincing case.

Charlie was by far the best of them. Charlie had no time at all for the rumors. “Mr. Toadsworth is more dangerous than you,” she told Kuro as her way of comforting him. She didn’t care that he didn’t have parents, or that he came from Knockturn Alley, or that he wasn’t any good at school. She liked his cat and she never pryed when he couldn’t answer questions. 

The pair were nearly inseparable. Between classes they would play in some of the less carnivorous gardens outside. They would run through the halls between classes despite comments from people like Evelyn that “proper wizards don’t run. That’s for muggles.”

In the opinion of Kuro and Charlie, proper wizards were boring. None of the proper wizards had been to the top of the astronomy tower in a thunderstorm. None of them had run the ramparts at dawn, or played fetch with the giant squid in the lake, or found the secret passage to the dungeons behind the suit of armour on the third floor by the boys washroom. 

Their favorite thing to do was to race. Kuro was much faster than Charlie, but she was much bigger than he was. The winner was usually decided by the classes they were coming from. When they were returning from Herbology with nothing but their dirty gloves, Kuro would leave Charlie in the dust. When they were hauling ‘History of Magic’ and ‘Introduction to Transfiguration’ with them, Charlie would leave beat Kuro by a mile. That is, unless Kuro used magic, or “cheated” as Charlie described it.

In their third week of class, something happened that helped dispel some of the rumors about Kuro, but not in the way he might have hoped: they started using their wands, and Kuro was terrible at it.

It started in transfiguration. They were meant to be turning a match into a needle. Most of the rest of the class were able to make at least some progress, producing either pointed or silvery results. A few students, including Edward and Mary, could evoke no change at all in their match sticks.

Kuro had the opposite problem. He had barely pointed his wand at his first match when it shot off his desk like a rocket. It took a lot of pleading to convince the Headmistress that he hadn’t done it on purpose, particularly when it happened twice more. He was quickly separated from the rest of the class for everyone else’s safety. 

He went through a whole pack of matches that day. They would burst into flame, or go soft like spaghetti noodles, or tie themselves in knots before he could even get all of the words for the spell out of his mouth. He finished the lesson with his greatest success being a match that absolutely nothing bad had happened to.

It got worse in charms class.

Everyone liked Professor Flitwick. He was a good teacher. He was clever, and funny, and was good at explaining things. He was also both alive and sane, so he had an unfair advantage over some of the other professors. He made magic seem interesting, safe and fun. He would do demonstrations of charms where he made folded paper cranes fly and taught fruit and vegetables to dance.

They had been discussing the connection between words and wands for the first weeks of class. They had gone over in detail how to control the energy, tempo and colour that was applied to a spell. Finally time to try it out and Kuro was nervous.

They each had a feather on their desks, which they were meant to levitate and a wand in their hand. Kuro’s crooked little twig evoked some snickers from the Gryffindors with whom they shared the class. 

“Swish and flick,” repeated the professor, regaining everyone’s attention. “Just like I’m doing, gentle swish and then a firm flick. Alright, now you try.”

Kuro made peace with his wand. He closed his eyes and begged silently “Please don’t blow anything up.”  He attempted the motion and to his great relief, very little happened. The feather in front of him just bobbed up off the table for a moment as if caught in a breeze. 

“Very good very good,” said Flitwick to the the class. “Now let’s add the words. Remember, the emphasis is very important: Wing-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa” 

The room began to buzz with students repeating the phrase and waving their wands wildly. A feather or two shuffled. Edward, in the seat beside Kuro, repeated the spell again and again, face fixed in absolute focus, but nothing happened. 

Emboldened by the nothing that was happening around the room, Kuro gave it a try. “Wingardium Leviosa!” 

The feather remained absolutely motionless. Kuro, on the other hand, did not. He was launched violently from his chair, up over the row of desks behind him, bashed his head off the ceiling wall and came crashing down into a bookcase at the back of the room. He woke up in the hospital wing an hour later. Charlie told him that Flitwick had described his spell as “Impressive but entirely incorrect.”

It was hopeless. His teachers thought he was goofing around or doing it on purpose. Professor McGonagall kept him isolated from the other students and Flitwick had installed enchanted mattresses in the class to catch him when he fell. His wand had even been checked three times for jynxes. People stopped treating him so much like a dangerous criminal, and instead were treating him like a walking disaster.

And then, to add insult to injury, flying classes started.

Kuro didn’t trust brooms. It was foolish, he knew. He would leap from rooftop to rooftop and jump from a five story building without blinking, but somehow the idea of being held in the air by a stick was deeply unsettling. 

Madam Hooch taught flying class. She was was a small woman with short grey hair and sharp golden eyes. She was the quidditch referee and had incredibly sharp eyesight. Nothing escaped her attention. She was also the head of Hufflepuff house, but unlike the heads of the other houses, that didn’t provide any advantage to her charges. Instead, she was extra strict with them, demanding that they set a good example for the other houses. 

The house they were meant to be setting a good example for in this class were the Ravenclaws.

Evelyn arrived in bright blue custom flying robes with goggles and gloves and a trail of her fellow Ravenclaws listening to her adoringly. “I’m terribly sad that I had to leave my own broom at home, top-of-the-line Current Runner, you know. Silly rules about first-years not being allowed their own brooms. Terribly silly. I suppose it’s so people like them won’t feel left out, the poor and the muggleborn.” She gestured dismissively at Mary and Kuro.

Mary looked wounded. Kuro Scowled. “I’ve seen her broom,” he whispered to Mary. “It’s a knut painted to look like a galleon.”

The first lesson proved out her point, though. It was obvious who had been raised in the wizarding world and who hadn’t. 

Madam Hooch blew her whistle to call the students to order. “Now, everyone stand beside a broom. When I blow my whistle, hold out your right hand and in a firm voice say ‘up!’”

The whistle blew and twenty children started shouting at the brooms on the ground. Evelyn’s shot straight off the ground and into her hand on the first try. Edward and a few others had theirs in hand in less than a minute. After five, the whole class except Mary and Kuro were holding their brooms and waiting impatiently for the stragglers. 

“Don’t worry about it, children, there are always a couple who don’t take to it right away,” said madam Hooch encouragingly, “Just step over there and keep trying, the rest of us will move on and you can join in when you’re ready.”

Being last was shameful enough, but being separated out and having to endure the smirk of superiority on Evelyn Lemieux’s face was even more defeating. Kuro and Mary dragged their brooms off to the side of the field and sulkily continued to instruct them to rise.

Soon the whole class, except them, were drifting slowly around the field practicing turning and stopping. Their friends and classmates floated past occasionally with helpful pieces of advice.

“You have to make it know who’s boss,” said Charlie. “It’s like a griffin, if you show it you’re in charge it will listen to you. We used to have a griffin at the farm but it kept using the house as a scratching post so we had to get rid of it...” the rest of the story was lost as she drifted out of earshot.

“Don’t think about it too much,” advised Edward minutes later. This seemed very contrary to everything he was doing as he seemed extremely focused and nearly fell of his broom when he paused to speak to them.

The final piece of advice came from Evelyn near the end of class. She had waited until Madam Hooch was well out of earshot before gliding skillfully over to them with a couple of her friends to offer her brand of support. “The brooms probably just can’t understand your foreign accents. Where did you say you were from again?” Her and the other girls laughed derisively. 

“Liverpool,” growled Mary through clenched teeth.

“Knockturn,” added Kuro threateningly.

“Up!” they snarled together.

Charlie had been right. It had been about attitude and anger was an adequate substitute for confidence. The brooms rose sharply into their hands.

Madam Hooch witnessed the event from across the field. Her eyesight might be excellent, but her hearing was not supernatural. She awarded Ravenclaw five points for helping their classmates. Mary and Kuro’s gathering rage made the brooms in their hands very lively.

“I’m so proud of you,” mocked Evelyn. “It’s so cute when dogs and learn a new trick”

Kuro could see that mary was counting beads on her rosary in her left hand. She did it often, but this time it looked like she was putting a lot of effort into not strangling Evelyn with it.

Kuro clenched a fist and glared menacingly at Evelyn. “Hey Mary, ever wonder what colour pureblood is?”

Evelyn blanched at the threat and made a hasty retreat. 

Anger had been enough to get them onto their brooms, but they were still the worst in the class. 

In the next lesson, they were supposed to be flying around grabbing flags that Madam Hooch had levitated around the field. 

Kuro had a hard time maneuvering his broom and he floated around mostly at the whims of the breeze. He had been working his way up to a very high flag for a couple of minutes when Evelyn shot past him and grabbed it. She hovered in place, waving the flag tauntingly at Kuro. “Oh, I’m very sorry, I didn’t see you there. Were you trying to get this one? It’s very dangerous up here for new flyers. You should probably stay closer to the ground where it’s safe.”

That was the last straw. Kuro didn’t care about learning to fly, he just wanted to wipe the condescending smirk off of her face. He swung his legs up and onto the broom, found the balance and stood up. He felt the familiar flow of magic through him and he pushed it down into his feet. He crouched down like a frog and launched himself off his broom towards a very panicked Evelyn.

His broom, relieved of its rider, fell away as Kuro shot up the ten feet to grab onto the Evelyn’s. He dangled for a moment as Evelyn kicked at him in panic. He swung up and straddled the handle of the broom, forcing her backwards onto where the bristles were bound to the shaft. She struggled to keep herself upright and the broom stable. Kuro sat facing her if on a very short see saw in the sky. Evelyn let out a frightened gasp. “You’re mad!” she exclaimed loudly. “Get off.”

“Let me have the flag,” Kuro said calmly. “And I’ll leave.”

Evelyn shakily conceded and started to slide the cloth to him, but something rudely interrupted their conversation. They stopped to listen to a faint whistling sound that was growing louder and louder. They looked around and saw, too late a large black ball streaking toward them. It looked like a cannonball and might well have been for the force that it hit them. It smashed through the broom they were on and sent them tumbling into the air.

A peaceful stillness filled Kuro as the pleasant sensation of weightlessness swept over him. He watched as the ball turned and started attacking other students, who dodged and spun erratically trying to get out of its way. He could see Madam Hooch with her wand out desperately trying to cast something from across the field. He watched the shattered shards of broom spinning gracefully around them. He saw Evelyn, who did not find the experience nearly as calming, screaming and flailing as they fell. 

Kuro rolled over like a cat and let his magic build up a cushion of air beneath him so he could land softly. Evelyn did not look like she knew how, though. She had completely come apart. If nothing was done, she would probably break every bone in her body on impact. 

Kuro felt for a moment that she deserved it, that she could do with a couple broken bones. His heart wasn’t in it, though. She was stuck-up and mean, but he didn’t really want her harmed and certainly not dead. Even so, he was helpless to do anything. The ground was coming up fast and Kuro didn’t know any real magic to save her.

Or did he? There was one spell that he could cast reliably, though it didn’t work quite as it was supposed to. He pulled out his wand, pointed it away from Evelyn and shouted “Wingardium Leviosa!” It misfired as expected and it threw him violently backwards into her. She clung to his back and shrieked continuously into his ear. 

They tumbled downward together and a just a few feet from the ground he cast it again, pushing all his thoughts through his wand into the ground. “Wingardium Leviosa!”

It was like they had landed on an invisible trampoline. They slowed and stopped just inches from the ground before being shot several feet back into the air. Evelyn let go in surprise and they separated. She landed in a crumpled heap a few feet away as Kuro touched down gently.

The rest of the class shot towards them on their brooms. Madam hooch had the ball in hand and looked mad with a combination of fury and relief. She blew her whistle to silence the class and asked “Is everyone okay?”

There was a general murmur of uncertain affirmatives from everyone except Evelyn. She hauled herself to her feet roaring with anger. She was covered in mud, her hair was a windblown mess and she was furious. “I want him expelled!” she shrieked. “He tried to kill me!”

“He did nothing of the sort,” Madam Hooch responded. “You two on the other hand…” She wheeled about to face two larger figures in yellow robes. 

Kuro looked up to see the familiar hulking shape of Meredith. She had tears streaming down her face as she checked on every student individually for injuries. The other was an older boy that Kuro didn’t know. He was just staring at Kuro with a look of predatory delight.

“Meredith Thrump!” Hooch shrieked. “How many times have I told you to keep the bludger in the field. Someone could have been killed here.”

That made sense, now. It was a bludger, one of the four quidditch balls. They are supposed to chase after players trying to knock them off their brooms. It had been knocked out of quidditch practice field way over into the first-year class, where it had a wealth of targets to unseat.

“I know!” Meredith wailed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit it so hard. Is anyone hurt? Please tell me that nobody is hurt.”

“You don’t know your own strength girl. Perhaps fifty points from Hufflepuff is enough to teach you.”

That was enough to get the other boy’s attention. “What! No! That’s more than a game of quidditch is worth. You can’t do that.” Many of the first-years agreed loudly.

Hooch fixed the boy with an icy glare. “Are you more concerned about points than the safety of your underclassmen, Johannes? That is behaviour most unbecoming of a team captain”

“I…” Johannes stuttered. “Right ma’am. Sorry ma’am. Nobody was, hurt, though. And did you see what that kid did?”

“I most certainly did see that.” Madam Hooch interjected. “Kuro, come here.” She ordered.

Kuro edged towards the furious instructor. “Yes ma’am,” he mumbled, unable to meet her eyes.

“What do you think you were doing leaping onto your classmate’s broom? That is the sort of dangerous foolishness I expect from a Gryffindor. You have cost our house another ten points.”

The Hufflepuffs groaned and the Ravenclaws cheered, except for Evelyn. “Ten points, that’s it?” she had regained a small portion of her poise and looked affronted. “Should he not serve detention at least?”

Madam Hooch turned her hawk-like glare to Evelyn. She stared down at the girl with the most contempt Kuro had ever seen in a teacher and Evelyn withered. 

Madam hooch delivered an icy cold condemnation. “You first snatch a flag from a classmate’s grasp and taunt them with it. And then fail to offer up even the meagerest of gratitude when he puts himself in harm’s way to rescue you. Losing ten points for your house may help you learn some humility.”

Evelyn reacted as if she had been stabbed through the chest. She stumbled back and needed to be steadied by classmates. Kuro didn’t think that Evelyn had received anything but praise in her entire life. The loss of points hit her harder than the ground would have had Kuro not saved her.

“And on that subject,” Madam Hooch Continued, turning back to Kuro. “That was some extremely quick thinking and clever application of magic.” Kuro thought he almost saw her smile as she spoke. “ Also, you put yourself in danger to protect another, a rival no less. Seventy five points to Hufflepuff.”

The Hufflepuffs exploded with cheers. Meredith picked up Kuro and hugged him, still sobbing but now with pride and joy. Even Shaun and Oliver, who had barely spoken to him since the rumours started circulating, patted him on the back.

Madam Hooch had to blow her whistle again to regain order. She declared the lesson over for the day, and assured everyone that they would have a much less eventful one next week and sent them back up to the castle. 

Kuro was heading off with the crowd with Charlie recounting her very exciting and detailed version of events to him, when he heard his name. He turned and saw Johannes attempting to argue with Madam Hooch. He stopped to listen.

“He’s light and nimble. He’d be perfect,” said Johannes excitedly.

“Absolutely not,” the professor replied crossly. 

“But did you see that reaction speed, and that agility in the air? You have to make an exception. We need a new seeker,” Johannes pleaded.

Madam Hooch was unmoved. “First-years are not allowed to play quidditch,” she said firmly. “Also, I believe quidditch is typically played while still riding a broom, not while falling off of one.”

Johannes seemed resolute in his assertion that Kuro must be brilliant “Come on, he could be the next Harry Potter.”

Kuro was flattered by Johannes’ misinformed opinion of him, but the mention of Potter tainted the feeling. To Kuro’s delight, though, at least one person shared his feelings about the Auror.

“Harry Potter spent half his time at this school in the hospital because of the special exceptions that were made for him.” Hooch chirped. “I’ll not be breaking any rules and endangering my charges just to win a quidditch match.”

“She’s right, Jo, let it go,” added Meredith. “I nearly got him killed today and I’m not about to let that happen again any time soon.”

Johannes had one last volley left in him. “Oh come on, let’s ask him. He’ll want to play.” He shouted up the hill, having spotted Kuro. “Kuro, you want to be our next seeker right?”

“I don’t like quidditch.” He yelled back. He enjoyed the look of shock and horror across all three faces down below. He smiled and tromped back up to join his friends having had what he thought to be a very successful day.


	11. The Woman from the Ministry

It turned out that not liking quidditch was not allowed at Hogwarts. As the first game of the season approached, nobody would speak of anything else. All anyone talked about were brooms and rosters and strategies and plays. Even Mary, who had never heard of quidditch before coming to Hogwarts was getting absorbed in the excitement. “How is it played?” She asked. “None of the words people are saying make any sense.”

Charlie lept at the chance to talk more about what she considered the greatest pastime in the world. “Oh it’s really simple,” she began, “there are four balls and seven players per side and three goal hoops and everyone rides brooms. The chasers catch the quaffle and put it through the hoops but the keeper tries to stop them from scoring and the beaters try to knock the other players off their brooms with the bludgers which is what happened in flying class because Meredith hit it too far. Meredith is one of our beaters. I want to be a beater too, someday, but they’re usually the bigger guys ‘cause you need to have a strong arm to knock the bludgers around i wouldn’t mind being a chaser too, but a keeper would be too boring and I’m already too tall to be a good seeker, they have to be really small and quick to catch the golden snitch which is how they end the game.”

Mary just stared, dumbfounded, at Charlie. A few minutes of help from Edward helped her sort out the details. 

The first game of the season was the traditional match between the top teams of the previous year. This year it was Gryffindor and Slytherin. The whole school went to watch the games and classes were cancelled for the afternoon. At the end of potions class everyone and rushed to clean up their seismic slurries so they could eat something before the match started. 

Kuro despite devotedly not caring about quidditch, couldn’t help but be swept up by the enthusiasm and anticipation around him. He jammed his tools in his pockets and tossed his dirty cauldron into his bag. A few drops spattered and hit the ground causing a light tremor to run through the floor. He was nearly out of the room when his escape was cut off.

Professor McGonagall appeared in the door just in front of him. “Kuro, please come with me.” 

He couldn’t remember doing anything to warrant the Headmistress’ attention, but the whispers of the ravenclaw students indicated that they had a few ideas of what his crimes might be. 

Kuro followed McGonagall out of the class and along several halls, she waited until there were no other students around to speak. “You are not in any trouble, Kuro. There is a woman from the Ministry here for you.”

In Kuro’s reckoning, those two statements were completely incompatible. He wondered if they had finally decided to arrest him properly.

He was led to a small side chamber and pushed inside. “Ms. El Assar, this is Kuro,” said Professor McGonagall to the woman standing inside. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

The woman had a kind face, with large brown eyes, dark skin, and just a few creases around her eyes that made it seem as though she smiled a lot. Kuro couldn’t say much else about her appearance as she wore a scarf wrapped around her head and neck and flowing, shapeless robes. She met Kuro with a warm smile and said “Thank you Headmistress, I’ll come speak to you before I leave.”

“If you have the time,” McGonagall said as she was leaving, “you should come and watch the game. The quidditch season opens today.”

“I might just do that,” she bowed the Headmistress out and turned to Kuro. “Please, have a seat.”

Kuro was suspicious at her kindness. He took the chair closest to the the window so he could leap out if things went badly. 

“Did the Headmistress explain to you why I’m here?”

Kuro shook his head.

“My name is Sabine. I’m from the Office of Orphan Affairs. Have you heard of it?”

He shook his head again.

She sat down facing him and smiled pleasantly again. “Well, we’re relatively new. Our job is to make sure that any witch or wizard orphans are properly looked after. There have been… oversights in the past. I’m your case worker. I’m here to make sure you are safe and well cared for. Normally we would have met before school started, but I understand that you’re a bit of a special case. You weren’t even registered with us until after you were on the train.”

Kuro wasn’t sure if that was due to Potter plotting something, or just being incompetent. 

“I’d like to get to know you a bit today, if that’s okay with you?”

Kuro remained motionless. She seemed entirely too genuine and friendly for his liking. It was like she was going to try to sell him something. 

“Okay, well, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. But I’d like to ask you some questions, alright.”

Kuro nodded slowly, but checked that he still had a clear path to the window. Outside he could see the distant quidditch field starting to fill with students. 

“First, how are you liking it here at Hogwarts?”

What a complicated question. Kuro hadn’t fully considered it until she asked. “It’s okay,” he said “The food is good, but I don’t like being a prisoner.”

“Why do you say you’re a prisoner?” she said with a bit of surprise.

“Am I allowed to leave?” Kuro asked in response.

“Well, I suppose not right now. We don’t have anywhere for you to go yet. But I’m working to find a good home for you for the summer. But you’re really not a prisoner here, I promise. You’re a student. Just like everyone else. Okay?”

Kuro nodded because it felt like she wanted him to. The soaring stone walls of the school and forest full of monsters that surrounded it seemed to contest her point.

“How are classes going? Do you have a favorite yet?”

“Badly,” Kuro said, “And no, but I hate potions the least.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Slughorn ignores me and I haven’t exploded anything in it yet.”

Kuro enjoyed watching Sabine shift uncomfortably while trying to process his answer. She changed the subject. “Have you made any friends?”

“Yes.” Kuro was a little surprised at how quickly he responded. It was true, though, he really had friends for the first time in his life. Charlie, Edward and Mary were proper friends, even if they were all a bit weird. The happy realization made his chest feel uncomfortably light and warm.

“That’s wonderful. Do they treat you well? Do they tease you at all?”

“No, they don't. Everyone else does, but they don't.” 

“The other children tease you? Why do you think that is?” She looked sad and very concerned. Kuro was starting to think that she might actually be a nice person.

“Because I’m a short, ugly, poor, and stupid, with no talent, name, or family.” Kuro told her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He did feel like it sort of hung like a sign around his neck. 

“Oh dear. Why do you say that?” 

“Because it’s true.”

“I don’t think it’s true.” She comforted him with such compassion that he almost believed her. “You’ve had a tough start, that’s true. And it’s tough being an orphan…”

“I’m not an orphan.” Kuro cut her off.

“What?” She looked very confused and started shuffling through a sheaf of papers looking for a mistake. “Where are your parents?”

“I don’t have any parents.” Kuro was surprised Sabine hadn’t been told.

“I… um… well…” Ms. El Assar stumbled trying to make sense of Kuro. “So you don’t know your parents. That’s okay. Is that why you don’t have a last name?”

“I don’t have a name at all.” Kuro answered growing a little impatient with the questions. He thought that she should know these things. “Kuro is just a number. I’m number nine.”

“Are there another eight?” Sabine asked suddenly, as if he’d said something very important.

Kuro narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the woman. She seemed so genuine, but then again, maybe too concerned with his well-being to be believed. Could she be yet another spy working for Potter? “I don’t think so,” he said. He thought he would test her, see if she was digging for secrets. “Master never told me.”

“Master?” she said, very interested. “Is that who raised you? Why do you call him that?”

“I am his servant.” He said.

“What is his name?” she asked carefully. 

She had given herself away. She was just another tool of the Aurors. “He wouldn’t like me telling you,” Kuro said.

She backed off the question and spent another twenty minutes attempting to feign friendliness and discussing his classes and living arrangements and health, but frequently circling back to get more details on his life before school. Kuro evaded the questions, he had no intention of needing punishment today.

Kuro noticed her fidgeting with the head-scarf whenever she asked probing questions. He was reminded of Potter when he disguised himself as the old man at the train station, how he had to wear a hat to cover his scar, and checked it regularly to make sure it was in place. Kuro scowled in annoyance. She wasn’t even a spy. She was probably just Potter trying to get information in disguise. He looked out the window at the match that was about to start and had an idea of how to test his theory. 

“Have you ever played quidditch,” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “played seeker back in my day. Oh, the game is starting isn’t it. I’ve kept you too long. Don’t want you to miss your first match. Come on.”

“Definitely Potter,” thought Kuro.

‘Sabine’ led Kuro out to the field and left him to join the hufflepuffs in the stands as she went off to the teacher’s box.

Charlie and Edward were thrilled to see Kuro and had saved him a seat. He wasn’t sure why he needed a seat because nobody seemed to use them. The moment the balls were released, the entire school was on their feet in the stands.

Quidditch was exactly what Kuro had expected, rich kids on expensive brooms chasing balls around the sky. The quality of the broom seemed to matter more than the person on it. The student announcer, Wendell Smudge, spent almost as much time commenting on the hardware as the players. “There’s Wendy Samson on her new Clean Sweep Supreme taking possession of the quaffle. She shoots, oh, interception by the Slytherin chaser. She’s just no match for that Meteor 7 that Everett Flake is riding.”

Despite his dislike of the game, Kuro had a hard time not enjoying the event. Everyone was cheering and shouting and the excitement was infectious. Oliver, a few seats away was quickly losing his voice as he cheered for his brother, Vincent, who was the Gryffindor Keeper. 

The game seemed a bit lopsided, though. The Slytherins were getting trampled by the Gryffindors and were losing sixty to ten within a fer minutes of the opening whistle. “I heard that the Slytherins lost their two best players this year,” shouted Charlie over the roar of the crowd. “The word is that they got caught using magic outside of school and got pulled from the team as punishment. Only shot they have of winning this is to catch the golden snitch early before they fall too far behind. Oooh! They are getting slaughtered” The Gryffindors had just scored again.

Kuro watched the lopsided game with growing anxiety. He had a pretty strong feeling that he knew who those two players had been, and if Slytherin lost this match then their whole house would probably be blaming him. He fidgeted with his galleon nervously as the Gryffindors pulled farther and farther ahead. Soon even a snitch capture wouldn’t pull the Slytherins far enough ahead to win. 

Slytherin managed to score and the stands exploded with cheering. Kuro was jostled and his coin leaped from his hand. He tried to chase it as it rolled between the stomping feet around him, but it dropped through some of the boards and fell beneath the seats. 

Kuro cursed and clambered up through the cheering crowd to the back of the stands. He hopped over the back climbed down to the ground. He began searching in the grass between the spiderweb of wooden beams that held up the seating. After a minute or two of having dust and dirt rained on him by the jumping and stomping feet above him, he saw the glint of gold from his coin. He climbed over to it through the criss-crossing timbers and picked it up.

Before he could even stand up, he felt a hand on his collar. He instinctively tried to bolt, but it was too late. He was lifted off the ground and slammed back against one of the posts. He scrambled to free himself, but another pair of hands joined in and held him in place.

“Enjoying the game?” a very angry sounding girl asked.

It was hard to see his attackers clearly in the uneven shadows beneath the quidditch seats, but he knew the voice. It was Bella the broom thief. He hadn’t dropped the coin, she had used magic to pull it out of his hands. It had been a trap. The other set of hands holding him could only belong to Seph. 

“You got us kicked off the team!” It was definitely Seph. He sounded furious. “We’re getting destroyed out there because of you!”

“You would have gotten caught anyway!” shouted Kuro. “You’re terrible thieves.”

“Shut up!” Bella punched him. 

Kuro laughed at her. She punched like a wizard, her wrist flimsy and crooked, but it still hurt. “You think you’d be flying those brooms here? A couple of brand new firebolts just appearing from nowhere?” Kuro mocked as he tried to squirm free.

“You filthy little beggar.” Seph’s grip tightened painfully on Kuro’s shoulder. “We’d have been bloody heroes on the field. Nobody would have cared where they came from.”

“Sure.” Kuro tried to wriggle his twist his hand free. “Just like nobody will know you beat me down here.”

Bella felt him trying to free his hand and guessed where it was going. She grabbed his wand out of his pocket and threw it away, but not before both of them had a chance to laugh at the crooked little stick. 

“Nobody will know, because you won’t remember.” Bella said with malice in her voice. She drew her own wand and pointed it at Kuro. “You’re going to pay for what you did to us.”

Panicked by being held at wandpoint, Kuro began to kick and flail. He caught Seph in the gut, forcing him to let go as he doubled-over. 

Bella Switched her grip to hold Kuro by the throat, pressing him hard against the wooden post. He was choking and couldn’t breathe, but his hands were free. He clawed at her hand and wrist to no effect. She held her wand up and began to cast something. 

Kuro thrashed. He felt something hard in his robe bounce against him and remembered that he had his potion making tools in his pocket. His hand shot into his robe and pulled out his knife. He slashed wildly and Bella screamed. 

Her cries were drowned out by an eruption of cheers from the audience above, as were whatever unspeakable curses she shouted afterward. She dropped Kuro and pressed her hand over her left eye where blood was pouring out. 

She looked ready to kill. 

She raised her wand again and shouted “Stupefy!” 

A blaze of red shot toward Kuro and he dove out of the way, scrambling for cover behind the wooden supports.

“Confringo!” she cried and the beam he was hiding behind burst into a shower of splinters and sent him flying forward.

“Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!” She screamed and the space beneath the stands was filled with streams of blazing red. Kuro dashed and rolled between the beams supporting the quidditch stands, trying to escape the onslaught. 

“Bella, stop!” Seph shouted, but Bella wasn’t listening. 

“Confringo!” she shouted again and another beam burst. Kuro could feel the splinters piercing his skin as he was blown backwards. The roar of the crowd above had changed from one of celebration to panic as the stands began to sink under their weight. 

Kuro found his feet again but it was too late. He was caged in by timbers on all sides. Bella shrieked with fury “Stupefy!” 

The force of the spell blasted Kuro back through the boards behind him, out onto the quidditch pitch. The world went very quiet and his vision narrowed to a dark tunnel. Just before he lost consciousness, he saw the glitter of his golden galleon as it rolled away from him. He reached out with the last of his strength, closed his hand around it, and passed out.


	12. The Winking Weasel

Kuro woke, not knowing how long he had been unconscious. His eyelids still felt heavy as he dragged them open. He was in a small bed with white sheets. There was a row of identical cots stretching out on either side of him. The smell of stale bleach hung heavily in the air. He was in the hospital wing.

He lay unmoving for a while, trying to piece together the last few minutes before he had been knocked out. It was a bit jumbled, but he remembered Seph and Bella threatening him. He remembered bits of running and fighting and, at the end, reaching for his coin.

The memory of his missing coin jolted him upright. He started searching his pockets for his coin but he was wearing a hospital gown. He was about to go looking for his robes when a voice interrupted him.

“Oh good, you’ve woken up. How are you feeling?” asked Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse.

Kuro had met madam pomfrey on a few occasions, due to his habit of injuring himself in class. She was compassionate and very skilled at healing wounds, but also rather overbearing. She tended to keep him longer than needed and lectured extensively him on safety.

Kuro checked his head and limbs before answering. “Fine,” he said. 

“I’m glad to hear it, child.” She smiled but her eyes still looked worried for him. “It took some doing to get all of those splinters out of you. I thought it best to let you sleep through the recovery. You have some friends who would like to see you, if you are feeling well enough.”

Kuro’s heart swelled at the suggestion that his friends would care enough to wait. “Yes, of course. Please,” he said.

Madam Pomfrey opened the door to the hallway and Charlie burst in as if shot from a cannon and she dashed to Kuro’s bed. Madam Pomfrey tutted loudly at the reckless behavior. Edward and Mary followed behind at a more sensible pace.

Charlie was grinning so broadly Kuro could nearly see her molars and looked about to burst. “Ask me who won!” she said excitedly.

“What?” Kuro replied.

“Common, ask me who won!” She repeated. 

“Okay… who won?”

“We did!” She leaped up and fell back onto a neighboring cot, cackling delightedly. “Final score: Slytherin, thirty; Gryffindor, one-fourty; Hufflepuff, one-fifty.”

“What?” Charlie wasn’t making sense and he looked to Edward and Mary for help.

“You caught the snitch.” Edward explained, in his ever-steady voice. 

“I did?” Kuro had a slowly dawning realization of what had happened before he blacked-out. It hadn’t been his coin that he grabbed, it was the golden snitch. He let himself fall backwards into the cot. His most precious possession was lost. We suspected forever. Even if it was found, it was just a galleon like any other to anyone else.

“It isn’t an official score,” Mary added. “The game was cancelled when the stands collapsed. What happened down there?”

Kuro was about to start explaining, but Madam Pomfrey came back in. “I’m sorry, but the patient needs rest and the Headmistress needs to speak with him. He’ll be back with you tomorrow.” She shuffled his friends out of the Hospital, and led Professor McGonagall in.

The headmistress strode into the room stiffly, thanked the Nurse and asked her to leave them alone. This did nothing to ease Kuro’s anxiety. She loomed over his cot and stared down at him. She wore an extraordinarily grim expression. “How are you feeling?” she asked in a voice so flat and emotionless that it wasn’t clear whether she was hoping he was well or not. 

“Fine,” he said, wishing he could disappear under the sheets.

“I’m glad.” She did not look glad. “Could you explain to me what happened today?” She crossed her arms and waited.

Kuro had the strong feeling of being back in the auror office, being interrogated. He had spent enough time living in Knockturn Alley to know that nothing good ever came from talking to the authorities. If everyone just kept their mouths shut, they couldn’t get in too much trouble. “Nothing,” he said.

“An entire section of quidditch seating collapsed, a student had her face cut open, and your unconscious body exploded onto the field,” McGonagall said impatiently. “That is not nothing. I’ve just been speaking with Belladonna and Joseph from Slytherin house. They’ve told me quite a story.” McGonagall was watching for Kuro to react. “They tell me that you stole from them, and that when they confronted you about it, you pulled a knife and attacked.”

Apparently Bella and Seph were not as well versed in the idea of honour amongst thieves. “What’s a knife to a pair of wands?” Kuro retorted, frustrated that he now had to defend himself. “Besides, I never stole anything from those two.”

McGonagall considered Kuro carefully as he spoke. “Can I ask you, then, what you were doing under the stands during a quidditch match?”

“I dropped my galleon. I went to look for it.” 

The headmistress looked skeptical. “Are you implying that you are innocent in this matter? That is difficult to believe when Madam Pomfrey had to spend two hours trying to save Belladonna's eye which you nearly carved out of her head.”

Kuro stomach lurched. He remembered the knife and some blood, but he didn’t really want to hurt her, didn’t really want to hurt anyone, he just wanted to get away. “Is she going to be alright?” he asked.

“Is that remorse?” An eyebrow arched over her square spectacles. She seemed to study Kuro for a long time without saying anything. She stood unmoving, unblinking, peering at him. “I’m going to ask you this once, Kuro. Did you steal anything from them?”

“No. I didn’t.” Kuro said resolutely. He was hurt that he was being accused of stealing from those thieves. 

“I do not appreciate being lied to.” Professor McGonagall pulled out a small piece of paper from her robes and let it flutter down onto his bed in front of him. He picked it up and read it “IOU Four galleons.” There was a small drawing of a winking weasel at the bottom. It looked like one of his old notes.

“I didn’t make this,” he said, staring in confusion at the piece of paper. He had not given it to them. He hadn’t even drawn a picture Graeae since he arrived at Hogwarts for fear of being found out.

“Oh, I suppose you expect me to believe that this just appeared in Belladonna’s pocket?”

“I didn’t make it!” he cried. What would he even do with four galleons. 

“I warned you when we accepted you that theft would not be tolerated. You will be punished for this.”

Kuro climbed out of bed and prepared himself for the worst. He shut his eyes and his whole body tensed and waited for her to deliver the punishment, but it did not come. There was just an overlong uncomfortable silence. He risked opening his eye. McGonagall was still standing there, but now with a look of confusion instead of anger. “What are you doing, child?” she asked.

“Aren’t you going to punish me?” 

“Detention. You will be receiving detention, and a hefty loss of point for your house,” she replied. “You will be seeing Mr. Filch every Tuesday and Thursday evening for the month of November.”

Kuro wasn’t entirely sure what detention was. Other students seemed to dread it, but the few he’d known to have served one had been alive and well the next day. There was some solace in knowing that whatever it was, it wouldn’t likely land him back in the hospital wing.

By the time he was finally released from Madam Pomfrey’s oppressive care the next day, word had spread. The belief that Kuro was a dangerous and violent had redoubled and now the whole school seemed to know that he had been the Winking Weasel. People avoided him in the hallways and clutched their bags more tightly when they passed. Every time something went missing, be it gold, glasses, or a dirty sock, it was blamed on him. Professor Slughorn had gone from ignoring Kuro to actively avoiding him and encouraged others to keep a close eye on their potion supplies. Some people had even started forging more notes, whether as pranks or cover for their own thefts Kuro couldn’t know, but he suspected a bit of both. 

His friends also avoided him. Initially, they refused to speak to him, as did the entirety of Hufflepuff house. The loss of points had put them firmly in last place after having been in second for the first time in any student’s memory. Kuro had taken to sleeping in the common room, because Shaun and Oliver had become so paranoid about him taking their things or stabbing them in the night that they wouldn’t be alone in the same room as him. For a while his only real company was Graeae.

Edward was the first to come around. He accepted Kuro’s arguments that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to expose himself by stealing from students here and leaving notes. Also, he still needed Kuro’s help in Potions. “Everyone has secrets,” Edward said as his form of forgiveness. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to tell us this one.” He paused for a while as if he had something more to say on the subject, but changed his mind. “But how did they know it was you?”

“I don’t really know,” Kuro admitted. “Lucky guess, maybe?”

“I’m going to ask my uncle at the Ministry, maybe he knows something,” said Edward and walked off calmly to send a letter by owl.

Mary was slower to change her heart, but she overheard Kuro complaining to the Fat Friar early in the morning on her way to meet the Friar for Sunday service. “It’s stupid,” Kuro said. “I’m probably the worst wizard in the school and everyone is afraid of me. Any one of them could turn me into a toad and they get all jumpy because I reached into somebody’s pocket. What would even be the point? There’s nothing to buy here and I have everything I need.”

“Have patience, my son,” said the ghost. “People are easily frightened and prejudiced. They will see the error of their ways in time. When they do, will you be able to find it in your heart to forgive them, in turn.”

“Thanks,” said Kuro a little ungratefully. The Fat Friar’s solution to everything was patience and forgiveness. He regularly advised the Hufflepuffs that the proper way to deal with Peeves, the Hogwarts poltergeist was to accept him and forgive his nature. This was easier said than done as Peeves’ nature led him to steal homework, put chewing gum in people’s hair, and flood classrooms. 

Mary cleared her throat and muttered a quiet apology, apparently shamed by the Friar’s remarks. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes looked wet and she was having trouble looking at Kuro.

Kuro nearly jumped into the fireplace in surprise at her voice behind him. When his heart had returned to an acceptable tempo, he said “It’s okay. I kind of expected it. You don’t have to talk to me. I’m not a good person.”

“I don’t think that’s true. You’re not the worst wizard here, either,” she said glumly. “That’s me.”

“You’re wrong,” argued Kuro. “You’re way better than me in almost every class.”

“That’s just the reports and things, Muggle stuff. I’m no good at spells at all.”

“At least you don’t blow something up every time you try.”

By the time the other Hufflepuffs had started to drag themselves downstairs the pair were laughing and talking again, earning several concerned looks for Mary.

It seemed for a while like Charlie would never forgive him, though. She wouldn’t look at Kuro or speak to him but kept sitting close to him in classes and at mealtimes, pointedly turning her back on him whenever he tried to say something. She reminded Kuro of how Graeae behaved when he had been gone too long or if he played with another cat. It took nearly three days for Kuro to realize that all she wanted was an apology. 

When he finally said he was sorry, it was like a dam broke. “You could have told me.” She said, grabbing Kuro and shaking him vigorously. “Keeping a secret like that. I thought we were friends. Are you really the Winking Weasel? I heard that the weasel was supposed to be a really clever witch. How did you steal all those jewels and things?”

“It’s not like that!” Kuro retorted. “I borrowed sandwiches and loose change. I never stole anything valuable.”

“But how did you do it?” she demanded excitedly. “Are you just pretending to be bad at magic? Are you really a secretly trained ninja wizard from the orient?”

“What?” Kuro replied exasperated. “No. Is that even a real thing? No. I didn’t use magic. I just picked things up when people weren’t looking.”

“What? Like an ordinary thief?” Charlie looked crestfallen. “Well you must have had some adventures right? Exciting times? Daring heists? Far flung romances?”

Kuro thought that Charlie might have read too many story books. “Well. I nearly got caught a couple of times. Did I ever tell you the first time I did magic?”

With his friends around him, Kuro felt somewhat shielded from the dirty looks and accusations of the other students. Things kept getting worse, though. By the third time Kuro had been cornered in a hallway by a third-year shouting at him to return their Herbology homework, his friends decided that something had to be done. 

“You’ve been framed,” said Charlie at breakfast with a mouthful of waffle. “Don’t you want to seek justice and clear your name? “We just need to prove your innocence and show McGonagall that you didn’t do anything.”

“But I’m not innocent,” Kuro argued. “I really did stab someone in the face. She’s lucky she didn’t lose her eye. It’s fine, really. I’ll just do my detentions and hopefully people will forget about all of this. I don’t want you guys getting in trouble because of me.”

“Nonsense. It is not fine.” Mary argued. “You had to run halfway across school yesterday to get away from that Ravenclaw girl who though you’d stolen her diary. I agree with Charlie. We have to stop this before you get hurt again.”

Kuro had hoped that Mary would have been the reasonable one. He looked to Edward for a level head. 

“I think I’ve already found our first clue,” said Edward, holding up a copy of the Daily Prophet that had been sent to him by his uncle at the Ministry. An article had been circled in red. 

Kuro threw up his hands in defeat.

Edward began reading. “Winking Weasel at Hogwarts?” read the headline. “The author, Rita Skeeter, intrepid investigative reporter for the Prophet has uncovered telling evidence that the attempted robbery of Besom’s Brooms on August the 26th was perpetrated by none other than the notorious thief of Diagon Alley, the Winking Weasel. 

While the Auror’s Office has not wavered from their official statement that there are no suspects in the crime, and Besom himself has been tight-lipped, witnesses of the event have come forward. They confided that there was a duel in the streets and a youth that fled the scene of the crime. 

All reports of Weasel activity have ceased since the incident. Who was the assailant? Is the weasel a student at Hogwarts? What aren’t the auror’s telling us? 

Are your children safe?”

There was also a photo of some of Kuro’s notes. 

Charlie slammed her fist on the table victoriously. “That explains how they knew it was you.”

“And how they made a copy of your IOUs.” Mary said enthusiastically. 

“What’s our next step?” asked Edward in his unwavering monotone.

They all turned to Kuro, as if this was somehow all his idea. He stared back silently for a while, before conceding. “I guess we have to prove that the notes are fake somehow.”


	13. Doxyflies

The plan that they worked out was simple. The other three would try to collect the IOU notes under the pretense of building a case to get Kuro expelled. While they did that, Kuro would try to find a way to prove that they were forgeries. 

His friends couldn’t be seen being too friendly with Kuro, so they only talked to each other when they could find private places to meet in secret. That meant more isolation for him. It also meant that he spent a lot of time exploring the castle on his own while trying to find places to hide from his accusers. The more he looked, the more he found. Hogwarts seemed endless. Every hallway had a secret passage, every staircase had a trick to make it go another way. He started to get to know the talking paintings and which ones would give him away and which would help him hide.

He also got to know the poltergeist, Peeves. Peeves enjoyed tormenting people. The Fat Friar claimed that one of Peeves most redeeming qualities is that he was entirely unbiased in his selection of targets. He would torment anyone equally. Kuro was unconvinced.

Whenever Peeves saw Kuro he would raise an alarm. “Thief! I’ve caught a thief here doing stealing. Come everyone and see. Thief! Thief! Thief!” Being a ghost that could float through walls, Peeves was completely inescapable and Kuro would have to wait until Peeves got bored and wandered off to annoy a new target. Kuro was also convinced that Peeves had started making fake IOU notes, too.

Unfortunately, classes did not stop while they investigated, and Kuro’s detentions loomed closer and closer. 

Everyone else, even Mary who had never seen a wand before coming to Hogwarts, could do simple spells, now. They could reliably get textbooks to float, turn saucers into saucepans and back, and some of them had become so skilled at the dancing charm as to teach an artichoke to dip.

Kuro still had not successfully cast a spell, though his skill with the wand was slowly improving. As long as he knew the spell he was casting very well, and he was calm and focused, he could reliably get nothing at all to happen. He hadn’t thrown himself across the room or melted a hole in a desk in days. Professor Flitwick even awarded him a point for his “dedication to overcoming his deficiency.” 

That award did not prevent Flitwick from also drawing attention to Kuro’s alleged crime spree. “There has been something of a rash of disappearances of late,” he said in a class in the last week of October. “I thought it might be of interest to learn a finding charm.”

Several members of the class glowered at Kuro at the mention of missing items.

“It is a relatively simple charm,” Flitwick continued. “But very different than anything we have tried yet in class. Unlike our previous charms, the words and motions are much less important that your state of mind. You must first choose the object you wish to find. It must be something you know very well, something dear to you and something you can picture hold in your mind perfectly. Something that you have put a little bit of yourself into. Things that you have made yourself are very good choices, as are cherished mementos. Pet’s won’t do, they have too much spirit of their own. Everyone, now choose an object.”

Kuro knew exactly what to look for. He only had one precious possession, and it had been missing since the quidditch match. It was his coin. He was a little concerned that the spell wouldn’t be able to distinguish his coin from any other one. He was considerably more worried that he would ignite some portion of the classroom.

“Once you have your object firmly in mind, extend your index finger and balance your wand on top of it.” Explained Flitwick.

There was a clattering of wands falling as students fumbled to find balance points. Kuro, for once, didn’t have a problem with his wand. There was a well-placed crook in his little twig and it sat, wobbling only slightly on his outstretched finger. He closed his eyes and imagined his coin. He pictured what it looked like, remembered how it felt as he turned it over and over in his hand, felt it absence tug at his heartstrings. 

His wand started to rotate on his finger as if a nail had been driven through it. It spun slowly in one direction, then the other, like a compass needle. 

“Now that everyone has their wands ready, hold that object firmly in your mind and repeat after me,” said professor Flitwick. “Preciose ductor.”

“Preciose ductor” Kuro said along with the rest of the class. His wand shot off his finger, bounced off his face and spun across the class. 

“Don’t worry if you don’t get it the first time,” said Flitwick as he levitated Kuro’s wand back to him. “It is a more advanced charm than we have tried before.”

By the end of class about half of the students had succeeded in getting their wand to obey. Kuro had no luck in getting his wand to sit still when he spoke the words. He was annoyed at his wand. He wanted this charm to work more than any other. It almost seemed to be working, too, but as soon as he spoke the words, it just shot off across the room in no particular direction. Complete failure aside, the charm had given Kuro an idea.

He waited around after class for a chance to talk to Flitwick in private. 

“Excuse me professor,” said Kuro as politely as he could. “Could I have a moment of your time.”

“Of course,” replied Flitwick brightly. Flitwick seemed to like talking with Kuro. Kuro assumed that it was because he was the only student in school that Flitwick didn’t really have to look up to. “What seems to be the trouble.”

“I was just wondering,” said Kuro trying to sound innocently curious. “If there is a spell to help people find lost things. Is there an opposite one, to help lost things find their owners?”

“Are you perhaps looking to have some things find their way back to where they belong?” There was a twinkle in Flitwick’s eye and a warm smile on his face. He had misunderstood Kuro’s intention and thought that Kuro wanted to return stolen goods. Fortunately, he thought this was a course of action worth supporting. “Well there is a returning charm. It’s quite an advanced spell that fourth year students learn with summoning spells. I could give you the name of a book in the library that would have it.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Kuro gratefully. 

“I doubt you will be able to cast it yourself,” Flitwick warned. “But I do always encourage students to study ahead don’t I? If you need any help at all, I’ll be happy to show you how it’s done.” Flitwick gave Kuro a wink as he scrawled the title of the book on a piece of parchment and sent him on his way. 

It was a start. Kuro was certain that he wouldn’t be able to cast the spell himself, but maybe Charlie would be able to. She was the best of them at spells. If they could get it to work, maybe they could get the IOUs to fly back to their creators. It was worth a shot. 

He didn’t have time to get the library that day, though. He had to dash to make it to Transfiguration on time, and they barely had time to choke down lunch before Defense Against the Dark Arts.

They slid into their seats, still shoving toast with jam into their mouths. They had spent the past couple of months learning about the nature of dark magic, how to recognize signs of curses, and how to best to avoid trolls. It was one of Kuro’s least unfavorite classes, partly because Ms. Crawley had been reasonably kind to Kuro, and he felt as though he was actually learning something, but mostly because until this point he hadn’t had to use a wand. Today promised to rectify that.

Ms. Crawley had informed them last class that they would be starting to practice shield charms this week. Kuro anticipated a day of getting blasted around the room as he failed to be able defend himself, or worse, blasting himself around the room as his spells backfired.

Ms. Crawley entered the room obviously concealing something behind her back. She wore the same tight expression she always did that made her lips look a bit like an owl’s beak, but there was a hint of mischievousness in her large eyes. 

“I promised that this week we would begin learning the basic shielding charm, Protego.” She began. “But a shield can only be tested if you have something against which to defend yourself. To that end, we shall first be learning a curse.” He voice was dark and filled with ominous portent. 

“Wicked.” Said Charlie excitedly while rest of the class sat in fearful silence. 

“Of course,” continued the Professor, “you will need to practice the curse on something other than each other while you master it. Can anyone tell me,” she said as he brought her hands out from behind her back and displayed what she was holding to the class. “What this is?”

She held up a tiny, iridescent black and blue blur of flailing limbs and teeth. They only had a quick glimpse of it before it vanished. A long pink line shot across the classroom latched onto the creature and tore it from Ms. Crawley’s grasp, leaving only its four shimmering wings behind, held tightly in her fingers.

Mr. Toadsworth swallowed and belched loudly. Charlie had brought him to transfiguration to practice flesh-to-fur spells on and hadn’t had time to bring him back to the dorm. “That’s a doxy, ma’am,” she said proudly. “Mr. Toadsworth loves them.”

The class burst out laughing Professor Crawley covered her face with one hand, trying to hide her own laughter. “Very good, Miss Cook,” she said once the room had quieted adequately, “but as we will need some left to practice on, could you please stow your toad in one of the cupboards until the end of class.”

“Let us try that again.” Professor Crawley pulled out a small cage from behind her desk and showed it to the class. It contained something that looked like dragonfly and a vampire had made a very angry baby. It had four arms and four legs, each with razor sharp talons at the end. It had four insectoid wings that buzzed loudly as it fluttered around its cage, and it had two rows of sharp fangs in its disproportionately large mouth, which it bared and gnashed viciously. 

“This is, as Miss Cook correctly identified, a doxyfly. They might look a bit like fairies, but don’t be fooled, they’re more like poisonous airborne piranhas. They’re nasty little blighters. Fortunately for us, they are also very ticklish, what with having two ribcages and four feet.” She took a minute to smile at the class as they stewed in their confusion. “The curse we will be learning, is the tickling curse.”

She distributed a small caged doxy to each desk with strong warnings to keep their fingers away from the bars. They spent some time going over the details of the tickling curse, the nuances of the want movement, the intonation and mental preparation, and the precise amount of force to exert when casting. The students were then set free to practice on their captive doxies. 

Some of the more skilled students had the spell mastered in minutes. With a twirl of their wands and a light, breathy invocation of “Humerus,” a small blast of orange petals shot from the tips of their wands and tickled the doxies for a moment, making the tiny monsters giggle and squirm. Their tiny squeaky laughs sounded like chittering rodents. 

Kuro took some time to build the courage to try a new spell. He’d never cast a spell on a living thing before and worried for its safety. Even for learning flesh-to-fur, he hadn’t graduated from the leather satchel, yet. With much of the class already tickling their doxies mercilessly, he steeled himself and drew his wand. 

Everyone in the seats around him paused their work to drag their desks to a safer distance. The scraping of legs drew the attention of Ms. Crawley. “What’s all this then?” she demanded as several students ducked behind their chairs for cover.

“Kuro’s a menace,” said Oliver Kagen. “Never know what will happen the when he fires off a spell.”

“Oh don’t be ridiculous,” replied Ms. Crawley. “Get back in your seats and stop bullying your classmates.” She obviously hadn’t been speaking to the other teachers much.

“No, it’s okay.” said Kuro glumly. “This doxy should probably be hiding too.”

“Just take your time and focus,” she said comfortingly. “Nothing about this spell can do any harm.”

Being watched by the teacher and the entire class did not fill Kuro with confidence. His insides felt hollow and his hands clammy. His arm felt like a piece of rubber as he raised his arm to cast. He twirled his wand and in his breathiest voice said “Humerus.”

A bright green bolt shot from the tip of his wand and engulfed the little Doxy. It stopped fluttering and collapsed, unmoving to the bottom of the cage. The class gasped in horror and Crawleys huge eyes went wide.

She rushed over to the cage to inspect the fallen doxy. She pushed the tip of her wand through the bars and poked the unmoving creature. “Curious,” she mumbled very quietly to herself. Then, more loudly so the rest of the class could hear she said “Just stunned. Easily fixed.”

She pointed her wand at Kuro’s doxy and said “Restorato Nervosa.” A violet stream of light flowed from her wand and soaked into the doxy, which slowly began to move again, stretching its many limbs and shaking its head before returning to its angry buzzing about the cage.

Mercifully, the bell to signal the end of class rang. “Please bring your doxies back to the front and read pages 104 through 127 in preparation for next class.” shouted Ms. Crawley above the din of students rushing to escape the room. “And Kuro, please stay behind if you have a minute.”

Kuro caught a sympathetic look from his friends as they exited, but they were still pretending to not get along so they couldn’t do much more than that for him. He sat, defeated in his chair. Another professor was about to yell at him for dangerous foolishness in class over which he had no control.

Ms. Crawley fetched one of the student chairs and pulled up close to Kuro. She looked down at him with her large, quizzical eyes, which her lenses magnified absurdly. “How did you do that?” she asked without a hint of accusation. She seemed genuinely curious.

“I don’t know,” said Kuro. “Every spell I cast comes out wrong.”

“Could you do it again?” 

She brought out a caged doxy and set it down for him. Kuro drew his crooked little stick, focused on the doxy, twirled the wand and said “Humerus.”

Exactly the same thing happened, a flash of green and a crumpled pile of doxy. 

As Ms. Crawley revived the creature, she muttered to herself “Fascinating.” She had him do it twice more and he was starting to feel bad for the little monster. It was a ravenous bloodthirsty beast, but still, it seemed cruel. 

“Do it once more, please,” she asked, “but try the alternate words for the the spell, ‘Lorem Ipsum.”

Kuro had never heard of a spell having two invocations, but he was new to actually casting spells. Maybe it was something you learned in later years. He prepared himself, made the motions and spoke the words.

Same effect. The doxy dropped like a rock. 

Ms. Crawley clapped and smiled a tight little smile. “How very curious.”

“What is so curious?” Kuro grumbled. “I’m just bad at spells.”

“No.” contested the professor with absolute certainty. “You are not.”

Kuro stared at the doxy, still unmoving in a tangled pile of its own limbs. It did not look like he has successfully tickled it. “Huh?” he asked scratching his head.

“Your problem is not that you are bad at casting spells, it is that you are too good at it for your own good.”

This did not make any sense. Kuro was pretty sure that blowing himself up was not a great mark of skill. “Come again?” he said, starting to worry for the sanity of his teacher.

“Do you know what spell you just cast?” 

“The tickling curse, but very badly.” Kuro replied. 

“You did not cast humerus, not even a little. What you cast is a paralysis curse, sometimes called the waking death. It causes the subject’s muscles to all go limp and they are unable to move, but are still fully conscious. It is, as you might have guessed, not one we teach in this class. Where did you learn it?”

“I didn’t,” Kuro said defensively. “I’ve never heard of it before.”   
  


“Truly?” She tapped her small beaky nose with her finger as she considered Kuro “Can I borrow your wand for a moment?” she asked. 

Kuro handed over his pathetic twig and the professor examined it closely. “Hmm…” she said. “Pine, yes? As I expected. What is the core?”

“Elf hair, I think,” said Kuro. “That’s what they told me, anyway.”

“Really? I’ve never seen an elf hair wand in person,” she said slowly. She turned the wand over and over in her hands, scrutinizing it carefully. Without warning she stood up and made a series of gestures. From the end of his wand burst a shower of flower petals, an explosion of glittering sparks that hung in the air like stars, a flurry of large snowflakes, and a butterfly made of smoke. 

Kuro stared with a combination wonder and jealousy. He’d never seen a wand used to make such splendid and whimsical things, but he wished that his wand would obey him like that.

She stopped and handed back the wand to Kuro with delicacy and respect for the gnarled stick. “If I’m not mistaken, you have spent much of your life trying to stay out of sight and unnoticed, is that right, Kuro?”

Kuro nodded, a little ashamed. 

“Then this all makes sense.” Crawley seemed quite satisfied with herself but Kuro was still completely in the dark. 

“What makes sense?” Kuro asked.

“Have you ever seen a wizard cast a spell without using words?” she asked instead of answering, using a voice like she was teaching a lesson.

Kuro had seen it. In fact he had done it. He could run and jump without wands or words. 

“We call that ‘non-verbal spells.’ It takes a deep familiarity with a spell, careful focus and control, and lots of practice. Some wizards never master casting more than a few spells wordlessly, and you seem to be doing it by mistake. You just cast a fairly powerful curse without even knowing the words. You even cast it using the wrong words. Lorem ipsum aren’t magical words at all, they’re nonsense.”

“Is that good?” Kuro asked uncertainly. “It’s not, is it?”

She pondered for a moment. “You’ll get aces in sixth year if you can make it there, but it’s like trying to run before you can crawl. Words are supposed to construct a spell, and the wand sculps and directs it. You, however, are giving spells shape and substance with your thoughts and feelings, and your wand isn’t listening to your words. It doesn’t want words. I think that’s why it chose you. Do you know much about elves?”

“Only what I was awake for in history class,” replied Kuro. 

“House elves are dedicated servants. They are fiercely proud of doing their duties without ever bothering their masters. If you ask them, the best house elf is never heard nor seen. Did you know that there are over a hundred here at hogwarts?”

Kuro shook his head. 

Crawley continued. “Few do. It is because they keep themselves hidden. They are powerful magical creatures, too. But their magic is wandless and wordless. That wand chose you because you want to be secret and quiet, like the owner of the hair it’s made from.”

Kuro looked down at his innocuous little stick with a bit of pride. It wasn’t bold or ostentatious or glamorous. It was the sort of thing that would be completely overlooked if you didn’t know better, just like him. But it didn’t explain everything. “Why do I keep blowing myself up?”

Ms. Crawley tried to look comforting. “I think,” she said, “that your challenge is that you don’t know what the spells you are casting are actually shaped like. You are creating the magic in your mind, but since you’ve never cast it normally, you don’t know how it is supposed to feel or how to think about it. You will need to learn to cast spells with words, before you can cast them without. You just need to convince your wand to listen to you.”

“I’ve been trying, but I think it would rather be left alone. It keeps destroying things and tossing me around.”

Ms. Crawley looked sympathetic, or as sympathetic as her birdlike features would allow. “I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s trying to do what you ask of it, but you aren’t speaking the same language.” She sat back and thought on something for a few moments before asking “Would you humor me with some experiments?”

Kuro did not like that word. Experiments had usually been painful experiences during his time with Phinaes. He shuddered a little at the memory, but Crawley seemed to have no ill-intentions toward Kuro. She had the same academic curiosity as Phineas, but without the disdain or malice. He agreed, but checked that there was a window he could escape through if necessary.

“Thank you,” she said. “First could you please cast Humerus once more on this doxy.”

Once more he cast the spell and the doxy dropped like a rag doll.

“Very good,” said crawley, reviving the little monster once more. “Now remember that feeling, the shapes and motions in your mind, the flow of energy through you. And cast it again, but don’t say the words.”

Kuro tried, but it didn’t work. “Did it feel the same?” Ms. Crawley asked.

“Not quite,” replied Kuro.

“Then try again, take your time. There’s no rush.”

Kuro focused on the doxy. Let the same anxiety fill him as when he was about to say the words, let the shape of the spell he was about to cast form in his mind and pushed his intentions into the wand. He made the motions and a familiar green flash shot out of the end of the wand and his poor doxy hit the bottom of the cage face first. 

Crawley applauded. “Very good. Excellent. I doubt there’s another first-year that could do that.”

Kuro couldn’t remember having ever received praise like that. It was a bit much for him. He looked around awkwardly and scratched his head with his wand, not sure how to respond. Words were kind of getting caught in his throat.

“Now let’s see if we can get you to cast something with words.”  Her huge eyes were wide with enthusiasm. She fluttered around the room, clearing desks and giving Kuro a safe space to make explosive mistakes.

“We’ll keep working on humerus,” she said. “You already know what it’s not supposed to feel like, so hopefully that will help. Now, try it again, but just let the wand and words do the work.”

Kuro tried, but the same green bolt shot out the end and flashed harmlessly off the wall.

“Don’t try to force the spell into shape. Allow the words to form it for you. Remember, wizards are lazy, they wouldn’t do it if it took much effort.”

She was right about that. Wizards never did anything that their wands couldn’t do for them. Maybe he was putting too much effort into it. He relaxed, let himself be unmotivated, allowed the worry and the pressure to pass. He cast, and nothing happened. 

“Well that’s an improvement of sorts,” said Crawley approvingly. “Now let’s work on crisping up your intonation.”

Another half hour passed with nothing happening. He was starting to get frustrated and hungry. Dinner had probably started. He worried that he had gotten soft since being here if being a few minutes late for a meal had started to bother him. He ignored the grumblings in his stomach and pressed on.

Ms. Crawley was impossibly patient. She’d watched him fail to cast the spell a hundred times and never wavered in her encouragement. She was alert and attentive to his every motion. She made tiny corrections to his form and celebrated when he made progress. Kuro had never had anyone pay so much attention to him, or care about his success. He started to wonder if this is what it was like to have a parent. 

An hour in and he was just about ready to give up, but then something happened. He felt it. The words meant something. They moved something inside of him they became entangled in the motion of his wand, they knotted together and a tiny puff of orange petals fell out of the end of his wand and evaporated.

Ms. Crawley applauded loudly. “That’s it. That is it. Did you feel it? It listened to you.”

“Yeah,” said Kuro “I think I did.”

“Do you want to try it on a doxy?” Crawley asked.

“Yeah,” repeated Kuro “I think I do”

He faced his tiny adversary in its cage. It scrambled to attack him through the bars and made an angry squeaking noise. Kuro relaxed, got lazy, let the word form in his mind and then in his mouth. He waved the wand and said is a long breathy sigh “Humerus”. 

A short jet of orange petals shot out and encircled the doxy. It giggled and fluttered for a moment before the petals turned to luminous dust and vanished.

“Well done.” Ms. Crawley smiled. It wasn’t just a tiny smirk, but one that reached all the way up through her cheeks to her eyes, turning them into joyful crescent moons. “I am very proud of you.”

Kuro felt his eyes get wet and his chest get heavy. He tried to thank her but he kept choking on the words as his heart seemed to be trying to crawl up his throat. All he could do was nod.

“Keep practicing and you’ll have it shooting right across the room by next week,” said Crawley, patting him on the back and handing him his bag. “Now go get some dinner before it’s gone.”

  
Kuro was just about to leave the class when Crawley called him back. “Two more things before you go. First, if I find that anyone has been paralysed, you’ll be in front of the Headmistress faster than a Firebolt with a tailwind,” she warned seriously. “Second, you also return this to Miss Cook, I believe she forgot it.” She smiled handed him an enormous warty mass which croaked loudly as Kuro wrapped his arms around its bulk. Charlie had forgotten Mr. Toadsworth in the cupboard. 


	14. The Caretaker

Kuro practically skipped to the great hall. He would have cartwheeled the whole way, but the bulk of Mr. Toadsworth weighed him down. To his credit, Mr. Toadsworth did not squirm or struggle. In fact, Kuro wasn’t even sure that he’d ever seen him move under his own power. 

He reached the great hall just as everyone was clearing out from dinner. He spotted Charlie amongst the swarm of hufflepuffs and fought through the surge of students towards her. He thrust Mr. Toadsworth into her arms and began to tell her all he’d learned that day, forgetting all about their plans to pretend to be enemies. He’d barely gotten three words out when something grabbed him by the collar and hauled him backwards. “Thinking of skipping detention are you?” said a hoarse and malicious voice.

Kuro turned to see an old man, withered, hunched, and gaunt. He had huge lamp-like eyes which hung open like much his slack jaw. He seemed more like a skeleton that had borrowed someone’s skin than a human. It was Mr. Filch, the school caretaker. “You’re mine tonight, boy.” Filch’s face twisted into an approximation of a grin, exposing his crooked and yellowed teeth.

Kuro’s heart sank. It was the first Tuesday of November. He had detention. All the delight at finally casting a spell eroded under Filch’s twitching glare. He slumped and allowed himself to be led off by the caretaker, followed closely by Filch’s ancient and angry cat, Mrs. Norris.

Kuro didn’t know where they were going. Filch didn’t seem to use any of the hallways that students travelled in. It was like the castle opened up and let him move freely through it. There were paths obscured by bookshelves and tapestries, not so much hidden as just kept in places that you wouldn’t think to look. Despite Filch’s slow, shambling pace they had reached the dungeon classroom where potions was held in only a couple of minutes, though Kuro couldn’t remember having gone down any stairs. 

Filch shoved open the door and pushed Kuro inside. Something had gone terribly wrong in this room. The class normally smelled of dubious concoctions, but tonight it stank like rotting manticore entrails and mouldering socks. Kuro was slightly glad that he had missed dinner, as there was nothing in his stomach to expel. Bluish black ooze dripped from the walls and candle holders. It covered the desks and books and bags which had been abandoned by the class in which the pungent catastrophe had happened. “Explosion in a third-year class,” said Filch in a sadistically gleeful tone. “Clean it up. No magic.”

He shoved a bucket of soapy water and a sponge over to Kuro, found a clean stool and sat down to watch Kuro work while he stroked his old, scrawny, and arthritic cat. 

Kuro started to scrub. He started at edge of the class and worked inwards, climbing on shelves and hanging from beams to get to the many splashes of putrid goo. The bucket must have been enchanted, for no matter how many times he rinsed his sponge the water stayed clear and clean. He worked slowly towards the epicenter of the explosion, a split and mangled pewter cauldron sitting on a desk in the third row. It was tiring work, but not nearly as bad as he had expected. He wasn’t being whipped or beaten and he was allowed to swing from the rafters and climb on desks. If it hadn’t been for the smell, he might have even enjoyed himself. 

It was nearly midnight by the time Filch was satisfied with his work. “That’ll teach you for stealing, boy,” he said menacingly. “Count yourself lucky. In the old days we’d have had your hands off.” He licked his teeth as though he longed for the opportunity.

“That’s sort of more what I was expecting,” said Kuro. “This wasn’t really that bad, considering.” Kuro realized as soon as the words had left his mouth that it that it had been a foolish thing to say. 

“Not that bad, eh?” Filch’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I’ll be seeing you again on Thursday, won’t I? We’ll see if we can’t find something more appropriate to your crimes. Now get to bed.” He shot one last haunting glare at Kuro and vanished down one of his unseen passages.

Kuro began making his way through the darkened castle. It was very different at night. The people in the many portraits had all fallen asleep. The halls were dark and even his nearly silent steps seemed to echo loudly through them. It felt more like home, in Knockturn, quiet and full of secrets. He knew that he should head back straight away. He was tired and hungry and if he was caught out and about he risked further punishment and suspicion, but he couldn’t help the urge to wander freely through the halls. He purposely took some wrong turns as he wandered about the long winding labyrinth of the Hogwarts dungeons. He wondered why a school needed such an elaborate collection of cells. 

He found a staircase he’d never taken and climbed it until he reached a large portrait of a larger woman who woke with a start and demanded he explain himself. He fled from the noisy portrait and let himself out onto the ramparts to take a stroll in the cold autumn night air. He climbed up and sat on a parapet, dangling his feet over the high wall. He looked up at silhouette of the huge castle with a nearly full moon glowing behind it. His hand reached absently to where his coin should be to fidget with it, but it was not there. 

He thought back to the finding charm. It had seemed to be working until he used the words. He considered what he had learned from Ms. Crawley about wordless magic. Flitwick had said that the spell was more about the state of your heart and mind than the words. Maybe it had been working. Maybe his wand had been listening to his feelings and the words had ruined it. 

He pulled out his wand and balanced it on the tip of his finger and began concentrating on his coin. Slowly the wand pivoted around, swinging back and forth before settling firmly in one direction. It wasn’t just pointing, it felt like it was pulling him, tugging at his heart to follow. He leaped from the wall, dropping several stories onto the gardens below and started to dash across the green, thrashing through piles of autumn leaves as he went. 

He imagined that it should be hard to keep the wand balanced, but as long as he stayed focused on his galleon, it stayed glued to the tip of his finger, pointing firmly and steadily in the same direction. Kuro jumped over thorny quillblossom bushes, pushed through hanging and squirming eelvines, and dodged the snapping Jupiter-fairy-traps. He scaled the far wall and came to a screeching halt. He had nearly jumped off without looking and that would have been a very big mistake. This was the cliff-facing side of the castle. There was a sheer hundred foot drop down to the inky black lake below. 

He had lost focus, though, and his wand kept moving even though he had stopped, spinning off the edge into the open air. He lunged to grab it. His hand found the stick but gravity found him and he started to tumble forward. He shouted “Wingardium leviosa!” and was shot up and backwards, back over the wall, tumbling down the other side into a thicket of licking nettles. 

He did not land well, but the nettles had broken his fall reasonably well. He laid still for a bit, regaining his breath and feeling for broken bones. Eventually the constant licking of salivating plants became too much and he liberated himself from the slobbery onslaught, tumbling out into a pile of compost. Then he heard voices approaching the green. “There’s something out there destroying the garden and I want you to kill it.” said the familiar hoarse wheeze of Mr. Filch.

“Yer overreacting, Filch.” It was the deep booming voice of the gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Hagrid. “There’s nothing about here that’ll do anything any harm. It’s probably just a squirrel or a rabbit.”

“Squirrels do harm.” Filch protested, “and it’s your job to keep the grounds clear of filthy beasts.” 

“No it isn’t,” retorted Hagrid in an offended tone. “I’m the gamekeeper, not the game-get-rid-of-er. ‘Sides, if I were getting rid of all the filthy creatures, Ms. Norris would have been gone year ago.”

“You! Well! I’ll tell McGonagall about this.” Filch sputtered. “Just do your duty.” He stormed off in a huff.

Kuro could barely see in the shadows of the gardens, but the hulking mass that was Hagrid was hard to miss. He started to prowl the grounds, sniffing the air and stopping regularly to listen. He spotted something he seemed to consider suspicious and wound a crossbow big enough to use Kuro as a bolt. Kuro held his breath and hoped the compost heap would keep him hidden. 

Minutes ticked by like hours as the giant skulked through around the bushes. He moved with surprising grace and agility considering his mass. He came closer and closer, apparently spotting Kuro’s trail through the garden. He was only a few feet away, looking into the damaged licking nettles when he spoke in a low growl. “You’re out a bit late aren’t you?”

Kuro stopped breathing. Hagrid’s dark eyes hadn’t turned to face him. He wondered if the giant was trying to draw him out. “I’m supposed to take off points for being out of bed after hours. Probably detention too,” Hagrid continued to say as he patted the bush and let it lick his face affectionately. 

Kuro considered running. He was pretty sure he could outpace the Gamekeeper, but he wasn’t so sure about the crossbow. He kept silent and still, hoping against hope that Hagrid was bluffing, that he didn’t actually know where Kuro was.  

“I figure, though, that falling into a heap of compost is likely punishment enough, don’t you.” Hagrid finally turned to face Kuro’s direction, his smiling eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Come on, then. Out you get.”

Kuro crawled out of the pile of leaf-litter, worms, and rotting fruit, feeling very small and foolish, in front of Hagrid. “I um… got lost on my way back from detention.” he said.

“Course you did. The castles a right maze,” Kuro couldn’t tell if the Gamekeeper had believed him or not. “We’d better get you to bed. It’s not safe out here, there’s a monster about that’s tearing up the garden.” Hagrid winked. “Now which house are you in?”

“Hufflepuff,” Kuro said quietly, no longer afraid, but very embarrassed at being caught. 

“Right, let’s… hold on a minute. I know you.” Kuro’s heart sank. Hagrid had recognized him. He’d think that he wasn’t just a student out too late, but a thief on the prowl. “You’re Kuro, Teddy’s friend.” Hagrid said brightly. 

Kuro’s mouth hung open in confusion. He was glad that Hagrid wasn’t going to punish him, and happy that he didn’t seem to suspect Kuro as a thief, but who in the world was Teddy?

“Oh! he’s told me all about you.” Hagrid continued as he led Kuro through the castle toward the entrance to Hufflepuff house. “I’m glad he’s made some real friends here. Always a bit of an odd one that. Had a hard time with other children, what with being... well. I’m just glad you found each other, you and Teddy. Hufflepuff’s a great house for that. ‘It’s one place you can really be yourself,’ I told’em. Did me a world of good. Did you know that I were a hufflepuff? Loved it there before… Well.”

Hagrid fell into a slightly uncomfortable silence, and Kuro couldn’t help but fill the space with his burning question. “Who’s Teddy?”

“What?” said Hagrid disbelieving. “Don’t you know him? Teddy, you know, little Teddy Lupin. He said you were friends. Never shuts up about you and Mary and Charlotte.”

Kuro snorted a laugh. “Teddy Lupin? You call Edward ‘Teddy.’” He couldn’t imagine Edward being a ‘Teddy.’ He was much too serious. He also couldn’t imagine Edward talking at length about anything. He barely said more than a sentence at a time unless pressed. 

Hagrid looked affronted. “Of course I do. We all do. Ever since he was a baby. I knew his parents before they… well. That’s his name. What are you calling him Edward for?”

“That’s what he calls himself,” said Kuro, still giggling a little at the nickname. 

“That’s our little Teddy growin up then, isn’t it.” Hagrid said, his voice quivering. He sniffed and appeared to wipe a tear from his eye. “I suppose it were bound to happen sometime... Here you are, then.” They had reached the barrel storage room. “In you go.”

Hagrid tapped out the ‘Helga Hufflepuff” rhythm on the appropriate cask with the butt of his loaded crossbow, causing it to fire and puncture a barrel full of cooking sherry. “I’ll um… I’ll clean that up.” he said sheepishly.

Kuro crept into the Hufflepuff common room, trying not to disturb anyone. There was a couple of sixth-year students exchanging affections in a dark corner, and a fifth-year asleep amongst a pile of textbooks and parchment with their quill still in hand.

Kuro shook the worst of the leaves and dirt from his robes into a low-burning fire and climbed behind a couch to where he had been sleeping this past few weeks. Graeae was already there, waiting for him. She turned up her nose when he disturbed her and demanded several minutes of attention before she forgave his tardiness. Finally she settled and they curled up together and went to sleep.

Kuro woke late and starving. He went alone to the hall and gorged on breakfast. He had hoped to see Edward to tease him a little about what Hagrid had said, but he wasn’t there. He missed classes that day, too. Apparently he was sick again. Edward was the only person Kuro knew who spent more time in the hospital wing than he did. 

Kuro couldn’t find an opportunity to talk to Charlie or Mary, either. People always seemed to be around and they were doing a good job of keeping up the ruse of being enemies. It would be the weekend before another of their clandestine meetings and Kuro had to keep all of his news bottled up for days. He also had another detention before then.

This time he made sure to show up on time with a full stomach. He faced Filch with steely resolve, ready for whatever punishment he could dish out. 

“Last time was too easy for you, eh?” Filch sneered. He carried a pair of old-fashioned gas masks and had a large cannister with a pump on the top. There was also a long hose attached to it with what looked like a shower head at the end. “Not a proper punishment was it? Well, let’s see how you feel about doxyflies.”

“Doxies?” Kuro said brightly. “No problem. One minute.” He ran off to Hufflepuff house Despite Filch cursing after him to stay put. He returned minutes later hauling Mr. Toadsworth. 

“What’s that?” Filch demanded.

“It’s a toad. Let’s go.” 

Filch was not at all happy with Kuro’s eagerness, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with a student that walked willingly to their detention. He just sneered and muttered to Mrs. Norris about the good old days where he could have just hung students from shackles. He led Kuro out of the castle, past the gardens to one of the many greenhouses. It was completely sealed and had a “Caution, Doxies.” sign hanging from the door.

“Professor Longbottom is in with Madam Pomfrey for the bites he got from these blighters. Poisonous, you know?” Filch looked eager to throw Kuro into the greenhouse and leave him to be devoured. “We’re to clear them out.”

He handed Kuro a gas mask and shoved the spray canister of doxycide over to him. “You spray the plant beds, I’ll deal with the flying ones.” He pulled on a mask of his own and took out what looked like an old wooden tennis racket from under his ragged leather cloak. He pushed a large copper button in it and electric sparks crackled along the criss-crossed sinew strings. 

Kuro dragged the cannister of doxycide, which probably weighed as much as he did, up to the door and pushed it open. The doxies were not hard to find; the greenhouse was absolutely buzzing with them. There must have been over a hundred, flitting about, gnawing on bloodweed and popping dirigible plums. The moment the door was opened, though, they began to swarm and stream towards the invaders.

Kuro prepared to spray them and Filch readied his electric racket but the doxies didn’t make into range before Mr. Toadsworth burst into action. His impossibly long pink tongue shot past Kuro and Filch and started picking off Doxies with pinpoint precision. Five vanished into the toad’s gullet in as many seconds and the doxies scattered. They hid amongst the foliage in the greenhouse and Mr. Toadsworth belched loudly in satisfaction. 

Filch and Kuro stared at the toad and then at each other through the round lenses of their gas masks. Without words a new plan was formed. They were allies for the moment. Kuro dropped the hose and picked up the toad. They stepped boldly into the infested greenhouse and closed the door behind them.

They moved slowly between the beds of plants, Kuro holding Mr. Toadsworth like crossbow while Filch stood over him racket at the ready, watching for ambushes. 

Mr. Toadsworth caught and swallowed doxies with unerring precision. He seemed utterly bottomless, happily eating each chittering monstrosity as if it were his first. Less than an hour later they were spraying the now doxy-free flowerbeds down in case there were buried eggs. 

Once outside, they pulled off their masks and took a deep breath of cool night air. Filch scratched the head of his wretched looking cat and made a face that on a less decrepit person would have looked like satisfaction. “Nice toad,” he said.

“He’s not mine.” Kuro admitted. “I have a cat, she’s kind of like yours but grey… and only has one eye… and can’t hear… and her fur is patchy and her tail is crooked… and she’s kind of bad at catching mice…”

There was almost a glimmer of warmth in Filch’s eyes for a moment, but it vanished as Kuro drew his wand. “What do you think you’re doing boy?” he scowled.

“Move!” Kuro shouted. He had spotted a huge doxy, more than twice the size of the others with an extra pair of wings and a bloated abdomen. It was creeping down the roof of the greenhouse towards them, crawling on its eight limbs. It was right behind Mr. Filch.

“Threaten me, will you boy?” Filch yelled, his raspy voice cracking. “Think a squib can’t defend himself from a puny little wizardling?” He pushed the button on his racket and it began sparking violently. “Time to get the punishment you really deserve.”

The massive doxy looked ready to pounce. “Just move!” Kuro repeated, pointing the wand at the doxy, straight through Filch.

The doxy leaped and spread its three pairs of wings, shooting straight for filch’s back, fangs bared. Filch swung hard for Kuro’s head, but Kuro was too quick. He dove out of the way and rolled. He spun and without a word he shot out a bright paralyzing green bolt. It struck the oversized doxy which went limp and bounced harmlessly off of Filch’s back. 

Filch spun, eyes full of righteous fury, thinking he’d been struck by something cast by Kuro. Kuro didn’t have time to dodge again. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain. The racket came down hard, but the blow felt soft, like there was a pillow between him and it. He heard Mr. Filch scream with horror. 

“Mrs. Norris!” he bellowed. “No!” 

Kuro Rolled away and readied himself for another attack, but it did not come. Mr. Filch was cradling his cat. She had jumped in the way of the blow and wasn’t moving. “Why?” he cried again.

Kuro found his feet and put two more shots of paralyzing curse into the Giant doxy for good measure. 

“Is she…” Kuro started to ask, but broke off unable to finish. The sorrow in Filch’s sobs was too much to bear.

Filch looked up angrily but saw the paralyzed doxy on the ground and began to understand what had happened. “Oh you fool cat. You lovely fool cat. You were trying to stop me. Loyal to the end.” he cried. 

Kuro stood helplessly. There was nothing he could do. He just watched as Filch’s body shuddered and convulsed with sobs. Clouds cleared and the bright full moon shone over the gardens, illuminating the sorry scene in cool white light.

Filch’s sobs quieted, and Kuro heard a slow strangled wheeze escape Mrs. Norris. She was breathing. It was labored and weak, but she wasn’t dead. Filch heard it too. A look of glorious hope filled his sunken and sagging eyes. He jumped to his feet and took off at a run, cradling Mrs. Norris like a baby.

Kuro grabbed Mr. Toadsworth around the waist, the doxy by its antennas, and chased after him. Filch was surprisingly fast for such an old and feeble looking man. Kuro, with his awkward load, was having a hard time keeping up with him. They dashed across the gardens and quidditch field to a squat wood and clay hut at the edge of the grounds, near the forbidden forest. 

Filch banged on the door and wheezed “Hagrid!” as he fought to catch his breath. 

Dogs starting barking inside and they could hear Hagrid’s huge feet moving towards the door.

“Hagrid, hurry!” Filch repeated.

“Back, back.” Hagrid’s booming voice shouted at the dogs. “You right bloody pain in the arse, Filch. What is it this time? Crickets in the rosebushes?” Hagrid threw open the door. We was wearing a dressing gown that looked like it had been assembled from several sets of mismatched curtains and he looked furious. “You know this is a bad night.”

Hagrid’s anger vanished the moment he saw Filch, tear-soaked and panting. He held out Mrs. Norris towards the giant and managed to gasp out the word “Please.”

“Yeah, yeah.” said Hagrid hurriedly “He grabbed the dogs by the scruff and hauled them out into his garden. One was an ancient boarhound so large that Kuro could have ridden it like a horse, the other looked more like wolf but with sandy coloured fur and vibrant green eyes. The hound growled at the cat and struggled to get closer. The wolf seemed more interested in Kuro, or maybe the creatures he was holding. It growled and yapped and scrambled to get closer. 

“What are you doing here?” demanded Hagrid of Kuro. “Of all the nights... Get inside, both of you.” He said as he moved to tie up the dogs. 

The inside of Hagrid’s hut played tricks on Kuro’s sense of perspective. It looked cramped and small, with just one room for cooking, bed, and dining, but everything was sized for Hagrid. Kuro could rest his chin on the seats of the chairs without bending over and would need to stand on them to eat at the table. There was an armchair so large that he was sure he could fall down beside one of the cushions and be lost forever, and a bed that could sleep a half dozen grown men. He imagined this was what mice felt like all the time. He also saw the punctured keg of sherry standing in the corner with a ladel and a flagon on it. 

Hagrid did not leave them waiting. He burst back into the room, leaving the dogs howling miserably outside. “Right, what’s happened?” He took Mrs. Norris delicately from Filch and laid her on the table. Hagrid obviously had no love for Filch, nor Filch for him, but all animosity between them vanished between them for the benefit of the wounded cat.

“Electrocution,” sniffed Filch.

Hargid pulled out a doctor's stethoscope from a cupboard and put it on. It looked comically small on him. He hushed the room and listened. Kuro and Filch held their breath. Hagrid started to nod slightly in a slow and steady rhythm. “She’s alive. Barely. Filch, come hold her down. She’s not gonna like this.”

Hagrid dug through a cupboard full of bottles of all different shapes and sizes. He pulled a small phial of a slightly glowing pale blue liquid out and pulled the stopper. He delicately prised open Mrs. Norris’ mouth with his huge fingers and placed two drops on her tongue. He quickly stoppered the bottle and helped hold her down. Moments later her eyes shot open and she began to scramble and yowl, thrashing about in the two men’s grasp. As fast as it had started, it stopped. She went still again and collapsed. 

Hagrid let go. “That’s good.” Filch looked dubious. He returned the stethoscope to her chest and checked her breathing. “Yeah. That’s better. Poor little thing.” he handed the stethoscope to Filch. “I think she’ll make it. We’ll keep a close eye on her, but all she should need is rest.”

While Filch fussed over Ms. Norris, murmuring comforting things and petting her very softly, Hagrid turned to Kuro. “And what are you doin’ here,” he asked.

Kuro suddenly felt very odd and out of place. He didn’t have a very good answer for why he had brought a giant toad and a paralyzed doxy along to Hagrid’s hut, or even why he had come at all. He hadn’t really thought about it at the time, he just followed. “Detention?” he said uncertainly. 

Kuro expected more of a grilling, but Hagrid was very quickly distracted. “Is that a buffalo toad?” He boomed excitedly when he noticed Mr. Toadsworth. “Where’d you get one of those?”

“It’s Charlie’s,” replied Kuro.

“Well that is a treat. Can I hold him?” Hagrid asked like an excited child. Kuro handed the toad to Hagrid who stroked it gently, eliciting a contented croak. “And what’s that you have behind you?” Hagrid asked curiously.

Kuro presented the the doxy and Hagrid’s eyes went wide with delight. “That’s a doxy queen, that is. We’ve been trying to find her for years, ever since the Weasley boys tried breeding them in secret and she escaped. Did you kill her?”

“Just paralyzed.” Kuro said, a little pride creeping into his voice.

Hagrid’s face grew dark as a thought occurred to him. He rounded on Filch. “You brought him to kill the doxyflies didn’t you?” he bellowed furiously. “You brought a student doxy hunting for detention. You right lucky he didn’t get bit. McGonagall would have your neck. And I’ll bet that’s what happened to poor Mrs. Norris isn’t it? Caught her on the backswing with that blasted racket old Dumbledore gave you. Serves you right putting a student in danger like that.”

The brief truce between the campus caretakers had ended. “Pot calling the kettle black, Professor.” Filch drew out the last word as if it were an insult. “I don’t remember anyone in my care ever getting gored.” 

Hagrid, at a loss for words, sputtered and glared at Filch. “Come on, Kuro.” he said eventually, turning angrily away from the caretaker. “I’ll get you back to your house.” He threw the doxy queen into a fox cage and urged Kuro out of the cabin.  As they were leaving he paused and looked back inside. “Filch, keep an eye on the dogs while I’m gone,” he said as if it meant more than it seemed. 

As they walked away from the hut, Kuro heard the wolf whining and scrambling to chase after them. Finally giving up and howling mournfully. A howl that was returned by many more voices from the woods. 

Once well clear of the cabin, Hagrid asked Kuro what had happened. Kuro explained about the queen and the misunderstanding, and that Mrs. Norris had protected him from Filch.

Hagrid shook his head. “That’s good of you to think that way, but that cat weren’t protecting you. It’s the nastiest, most unpleasant feline I’ve ever met. She was protecting Filch. If he’d so much as poked you with that blasted racket, he’d be out on the streets again. McGonagall don’t have much patience for folks harming her students.”

“What do you mean ‘again’?” Kuro asked.

“Oh, well. Filch… he’s a. Well he’s not...” Hagred stuttered and sputtered around the topic.

“A squib, I know. He told me.” Kuro filled in the blanks.

“He did? Well... he doesn’t usually like students to know. He thinks they’ll think less of him.” Hagrid chuckled to himself. “Not that most of ‘em could think less of old Filch.”

“Anyway, he had proper pureblood parents. Dumped him on the streets without a penny when they found out he weren’t gonna be a wizard. It’s hard, you know. Muggles think yer mad and wizarding folk won’t give you the time of day. Ended up homeless in Knockturn. He was a right wreck when the old Headmaster hired him on here. Dumbledore did it to protect him, see. There was a lot of wizards doing awful things to squibs back then. Dumbledore hired on a whole pack of caretakers and gardeners and such, just to keep ‘em safe. When the war ended and things settled down all the rest left again. All but me and Filch.”

“But he seems to hate it here,” said Kuro.

“Nah,” Hagrid shook his head. “He loves it here. Loves hogwarts more’n that blasted cat. Just can’t stand the students. Thinks they’re all spoiled brats what need respect beaten into ‘em.”

“He’s right,” Kuro said.

Hagrid stopped walking and his tone turned very serious. “He’s not.” Hagrid bent low so he could look Kuro in the eye. “There’s some rich twits here, sure. But yer not the only one that’s had a rough go of it. Hogwarts is the first safe home a lotta kids here have ever had. Orphans from the war, muggleborn kids who grew up thinking they were mad, lonely kids who’ve never had a friend in their whole lives, that’s who Hogwarts is for. And the rich brats is no better than anyone else around here. You is all equal at Hogwarts, even thieving little street rats. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” Kuro replied sheepishly.

Hagrid’s seriousness shattered and he laughed heartily. “Sir?” he repeated. “Isn’t nobody what calls me sir. It’s Hagrid. Always has been, always will be. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”


	15. Slytherin House

The great hall was abuzz the next morning with confusion and speculation over a dramatic change in the house scores. The huge hourglasses that hung in the hall displaying the scores showed that Hufflepuff had shot up seventy points overnight without explanation. That brought them into third, just ahead of Slytherin. 

Everyone at the Hufflepuff table was asking each other what had happened and if there had been some kind of mistake. The Slytherins were demanding the same, but with much less cheer. No explanation was offered, though, except for a stiff assertion from the Headmistress that the scores were, indeed, correct.

Unsurprisingly, nobody thought to ask Kuro. He ate his breakfast alone, feeling enormously smug. He was not allowed to keep his self-satisfied smirk for too long, though, as McGonagall held him after Transfiguration.

“Kuro,” she said his name as if it were an accusation. “I woke this morning to find that Argus Filch had awarded Hufflepuff house fifty points, ten times as many as he has awarded in his entire tenure here. And Professor Hagrid awarded another twenty for the live capture of a doxyfly queen. If that were not strange enough, the two are in complete agreement with each other on this… entirely unprecedented event.” 

The headmistress paced furiously, tapping her fingers on her desk angrily as she passed. “And you appear in my class the next day, suddenly capable of waving your wand without anything catching fire or flying across the room. What happened?”

Kuro couldn’t believe that he was being scolded even for helping. “Why don’t you ask the ones that gave me the points.”

“I did,” McGonagall fierce eyes seemed to cut right through him. “And the story they tell sounds more like the work of a talented sixth-year, not a bumbling first-year.” 

“No! I just got lucky.” Kuro pleaded. “I’m useless, ask anyone. I can only cast three spells and one of them is always wrong. I’m not pretending.” 

“One of them is a powerful curse,” she countered. “One that is not taught or used at this school.”

“I learned it by mistake. I swear. Ask Ms. Crawley.” Kuro felt his eyes getting wet and his chest getting heavy. What Hagrid thought about everyone being equal at Hogwarts obviously wasn’t shared by the Headmistress.

“I’ve heard of more thefts, as well. With notes.” She crossed her arms and pursed her thin lips as if she’d just brought down an inescapable trap over him. 

“They’re fakes.” shouted Kuro, tears starting to flow. “You think I’m smart enough to fool everyone and stupid enough to leave notes around telling them that I stole from them? I can’t be both can I? And how am I supposed to steal anything? I’m always being watched. Everyone already thinks I’m a thief because of you.” 

McGonagall considered him coldly for what felt like an eternity, her angry eyes seeming to peer into his soul. “Go.” she said dispassionately. “You will be late for class.”

Kuro went, but he noticed at dinner that night that the points had stayed. 

Saturday came at last, and with it, a chance to really talk to his friends again. In a forgotten corner of the library he waited for them. He hoped that Edward would be well enough to come. He hoped that one of them could make more sense of the returning spell than he could. He hoped they would remember to come.

He had taken out the book that Flitwick had suggested and found the spell without issue, but it didn’t make any sense. It was so foreign that he couldn’t tell if it was just advanced, or if he’d taken out a German copy by mistake. 

Edward was the first to arrive. “Hello Teddy, how are you feeling?” Kuro asked, giggling. He had waited three whole days for the chance to tease him. 

Edward’s green eyes went wide and he froze in place. He looked. “How?” was all he managed to say. 

“Hagrid.” Kuro smiled and thought that was probably enough explanation. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Everyone has secrets, right.” he winked.

Edward slowly relaxed, or relaxed as much as he ever did and sat down. “I only have two notes so far.” he said a little ashamed. “How are you making out.”

“I have a spell.” Kuro pushed the book over to Edward. “But I don’t think I can cast it.”

Edward looked it over and then turned the book the other way up just to check that he was reading it the right way round. 

Charlie and Mary also found their way to them eventually. Charlie crept through the library as though she were breaking into a high security vault, sidling along bookshelves and ducking quickly around corners while walking on tiptoes. Mary just walked up, sat down, and waited for Charlie to finish her clandestine approach.

Charlie had done no better than Edward and was pretty sure that the ones she had were left by Peeves. She was too well known as Kuro’s friend, and was a terrible liar. 

Mary, on the other hand, had collected seven. Unlike Edward and Charlie, who were only-children, Mary had four brothers and sisters and had gone to muggle school. “Tricking other children is basically our national sport,” she explained. “These wizard kids are clueless.”

None of them could make any sense of the spell. By the end of their meeting, they’d each gathered a small pile of reference books just trying to figure out what the words meant. Eventually they gave up and just spent the rest of the afternoon doing homework and talking. 

Kuro was finally able to tell them all of the excitement of the week, from falling off the wall to casting the tickling curse, which Charlie let him try on her as long as he let her fire back. The librarian, Madam Pince, descended on them like a vulture when they did and scolded them into silence after their repeated fits of laughter. 

He told them about the doxies and Hagrid’s dogs and his adventures in the garden. Charlie was enthralled and demanded that he embellish the stories more for her entertainment. Mary was scandalized that the staff would endanger a student so. Edward seemed mortified at the whole thing and said nothing. 

As supper drew near, they started to clean up and separate, promising to meet back the next week with more notes and ideas. Kuro would keep working at the spell, though none were very hopeful about it.

The weeks began to go by more quickly. Classes other than transfiguration had become slightly more pleasant now that he had the occasional success. Detention still happened. Filch never thanked Kuro or apologized to him, but he only assigned small and relatively pleasant chores. One night, his task was to bring Graeae down to Hagrid to get a deworming and spaying potion. Kuro thought it was the closest thing to gratitude that Filch knew how to show.

Potter returned twice in the guise of the Ministry orphan watcher Mrs. Sabine El-Asar. He appeared for monthly check ups on Kuro claiming it was to make sure he was doing well. Kuro was amused that potter would dress as a woman repeatedly just to fail to get information out of him. Kuro also started to enjoy the cat and mouse game. Potter would pose innocent sounding questions, trying to trick Kuro into exposing secrets about his master, and Kuro would dance around them, providing evasive and unexpected answers. 

Potter pried with questions about Kuro’s parents and family. Kuro responded with stories about his cat and Father John. Potter came at him sideways with questions about how he learned to read and what kind of education he had, Kuro said that he’d learned everything he knew from the Daily Prophet. That elicited a brief look of distress from the disguised potter. 

Kuro’s favourite question was when potter asked him about his heroes. “I suppose I should say The Dark Lord Who Must Not Be Named,” Kuro started. Just that was enough to make Potter look mortified, but Kuro continued. “He was supposed to be brilliant and powerful and all that, but really if he got killed by a bumbling twit like Potter, he couldn’t have been that great.” 

Kuro enjoyed watching potter try to maintain his composure and stay in character as Sabine after that one. He pretended to adjust his head scarf and shuffled through some papers uncomfortably. It was delightful.

Potter asked some other, much crueller questions, as well. Kuro wasn’t sure that Potter knew that they were mean, they seemed like they were meant to be innocuous filler, maybe to make Kuro feel safe and confident. Things like “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and “what do you wish people to thought of you.” 

Kuro had never really thought about the future. His greatest hope when he lived on the streets was that he would still be alive when he grew up, and had never wanted anyone to think anything of him. It was safer that way. Now, though, the ideas of having friends, a family, a job, and a home seemed possible and it haunted him. Did he really deserve any of them? Would he ever be able to escape his life as a thief? Could he ever be anything more than a servant? Kuro didn’t really believe any of it could happen, but now that the ideas had taken hold, they started to eat away at him.

The worst question though, came at the end of their meeting in December. “If I could wave my magic wand and make all of your problems go away,” Potter asked in his badly faked Arabic accent, “where would you most like to be?”

Kuro knew the answer in his heart but he refused to answer. He just stared back at the warm, pretty smile and kind dark eyes Potter was wearing. He had won. Kuro had to concede. The place that Kuro wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world was right there, at Hogwarts. He didn’t even need Potter to magic away his problems. Even with half the school treating him like a psychotic thief, Kuro was still happier at Hogwarts than he had ever been in his whole life. He hadn’t even known what it meant to be happy until he’d come. 

He loved the food and the warm fires and his four post bed. He loved the building, how there were always new places to find and none of the architecture made sense. He liked learning, even if it was hard and he kept messing up. He even liked some of the teachers: Flitwick, Crawley, Hagrid. He thought he might even miss Mr. Filch if he had to go. More than anything, he loved his friends, Mary, Charlie and Edward. The idea of having to leave them and be alone again hurt his chest. 

“You don’t have to answer right away,” said Potter. “It’s just something to think on.”

Potter, in his matching lavender robes and scar-covering head scarf patted Kuro on the shoulder, told him that he’d be back in January to check up on him, and left him to his tortured thoughts. 

Still stewing over the fear of losing his friends, he went to dinner where Professor McGonagall toyed with those feelings. She announced the details of the Christmas Holiday, where Kuro would be all but abandoned. “The train shall be leaving on december the twenty-second, and returning on the second of January. Anyone anyone intending to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays will need to fill out the forms that are being passed around now.”

From that moment on nobody spoke about anything but Christmas. Kuro felt like the only one that was still paying attention in class. Even the teachers seemed to have mostly disengaged. The halls were buzzing with talk of presents and candy and debates as to whether father Christmas apparated, or travelled from fireplace to fireplace via the floo network. Kuro was constantly reminded of just how alone he really was.

Kuro’s friends tried to be sympathetic, but they couldn’t contain their excitement. Charlie rambled endlessly about all the animals on the farm that she missed. She worried about the old nag of a unicorn that had faded from white to grey, and she desperately wanted to see the chimera cub that had just hatched. 

Mary was excited to see her family. She missed her brothers and sisters very much, but she worried often about how to explain what she was doing at Hogwarts. She was the only witch of the lot, and there were laws about keeping the wizarding world a secret. Her parents knew, but the other children couldn’t be trusted yet, so everyone had been told that she was off on a special scholarship. 

Edward thought that Christmas was the best time of the whole year. He lived with his grandparents and didn’t have any other blood relatives to speak of. His uncle at the ministry that he spoke of often was actually his Godfather and apparently he had a huge family. On Christmas, they would meet at the family home they called the Burrow along with all the aunts and uncles and cousins and it would become a complete, glorious madhouse. 

By breakfast on the twenty-second, Kuro was feeling very abandoned indeed. He had always spent Christmas alone. Even Phineas had found places to be on Christmas day, but now that he had people to miss, it was much more lonesome. 

Almost everyone was in travelling clothes, ready for the trip on the train back to platform nine and three-quarters. His friends were being as apologetic as they could, but their warm holiday wishes just made him want more for them to stay. 

After Breakfast, Kuro saw off his friends. A long row of carriages were there to take the students to the train station in the nearby town of Hogsmeade. The carriages had pulled up into the snow-covered courtyard in front of the school, pulled by horrific looking creatures. They were black and skeletal, in the rough shape of horses, but they had a head and wings more like that of of a dragon. They looked starved and desiccated, with every bone visible through their skin. To Kuro, they looked like horrifying, monstrous beasts but the rest of the students seemed to think them as normal as the snow on the ground and paid them no attention at all as they climbed into the driverless carriages and were pulled away by these creatures.

He was just turning to re-enter the school when Evelyn decided to stop by. She was heading out to the carriages, followed by her ever-rotating entourage. Never wanting to miss an opportunity to point out her superiority, she paused to offer her form of Christmas wishes. “Oh, it must be so hard being a stray dog at Christmas. Nobody to love you, no presents at all.” Her voice was dripping with condescension. 

Her simpering followers laughed and pushed passed him, leaving him alone in the doorway. Far from deepening Kuro’s self-pity and loneliness, Evelyn’s derision improved Kuro’s mood considerably. For one thing, it reminded him that she would be gone for two glorious weeks, a blessing it itself. More than that, though, Kuro hated the idea of her being right and decided to enjoy himself over the holidays. Head held high, or as high as he could hold it as he was very small, he marched strongly back into the school. 

The school was almost completely empty. Less than a dozen students were still there and most of the teachers had left, too. The only Hufflepuff other than him was his prefect, Meredith Thrump, which was wonderful. Even after finding out he was a thief, Meredith had done her best to protect him. “Nobody’s perfect,” she had said. 

Kuro spent that first day just running and climbing by himself. With no other students to get in the way, the halls and towers and stairwells were his to explore. His many nights with Filch had taught him several hidden passages through the school, and he aimed to find them all before the other students returned. The best so far was the one from the top of the east tower down to the second dungeon because it was a polished marble spiral slide. 

He arrived at supper that day dirty, sweaty, out of breath, and utterly satisfied. He hopped happily into the dining hall and tripped on his robes when he saw what had happened to it. 

There were twelve huge pine trees lining the walls, each decorated from top to bottom with glittering glass orbs of silver and red. Enchanted icicles hung from the branches and silken garland wrapped around them like stripes on a candy cane. Fairies nestled amongst the needles, making the trees glow and flicker. 

The head table had been replaced with a huge candle holder with eight extra arms. Only two of the candles, each as big as Kuro, had been lit.

Most of the tables had been removed to make space, and everyone, both staff and students, was eating at one long central table. Kuro crept in and took a seat beside Meredith, who welcomed him heartily and filled his plate with roast chicken and fried potatoes. 

There was only one other student that Kuro knew at the table, and he was as unhappy to see her as she was to see him. It was Bella. She was happily engaged in conversation with a Ravenclaw boy, but she shot Kuro a very dirty look when he sat down. 

Kuro had made a point of avoiding her since the fight at the quidditch match. This was the first time he had seen her up close since then. There was a thin scar on her cheek and eyebrow where his knife had cut. When she turned to face him, he saw that the wound had gone much deeper. Her hazel eye had been slashed from bottom to top, and while her eye had been fixed by Madam Pomfrey, the iris had not healed cleanly. It looked like she had replaced her eye with one from a cat. 

Kuro felt very guilty about scarring her in his panic and stared fixedly at his food for the rest of dinner. 

It was strange being at the table with the teachers. They chatted casually and reminisced about years past and called each other by their first names. It was strangely unsettling to listen to Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey call each other Minerva and Poppy while laughing about old students and telling Ms. Crawley stories from years past while calling her Beatrice. They seemed almost human. 

Kuro retreated the moment it was polite to do so and went down to the Hufflepuff common room to relax. It had been months since he’d been able to sleep in his own bed. With Shaun and Oliver gone, he had the run of the dorm. He and Graeae lounged about, filling as much space as possible. Kuro even jumped on the others’ beds just for good measure. 

The second day started much as the first, but he knew that he couldn’t just spend the whole vacation playing. He was behind in every single class except potions and he had made no progress at all on the returning spell. After a quiet afternoon spent in the library struggling with his quill and ink to get an essay on the ‘colonization of centaur lands and subsequent conflicts’ written for History of Magic, he went down for dinner.

He was expecting much the same as the night before, but upon entering the hall, he was tackled and thrown backwards into the wall. 

“Kuro!” the assailant shouted. “I was looking everywhere for you!” It was Charlie.

Kuro stared up at her, dumbstruck. He couldn’t express how happy he was to see her, or how baffled he was at her presence. 

Charlie, true to form, did not make him wait long. “I got all the way to the platform and dad had sent an owl that there was a huge snowstorm and he couldn’t come get me. He’s not a wizard, right, so he has to take a car, well I guess he could have rode a thestral, but the muggles at the station probably would have noticed someone riding a flying horse they can’t see, so he had to take a car but he couldn’t because of the snow. Anyway I had to wait for the next train to Hogsmeade and then come all the way back and there were only three other people on the train and it was really boring but I had a chocolate frog and got a Neville Longbottom card. Did you know that Professor Longbottom had a chocolate frog card? I tried to find you when I got here but you weren’t around, but you’re here now so that’s fine. So guess what! I’m staying here for Christmas, isn’t that great!”

She had said it all so fast that Kuro had to play it back to himself more slowly in his mind to understand it all. Once he realized what she was saying, he threw his arms around her in a tight hug without even thinking. He knew that he should be sorry that she wouldn’t be able to spend Christmas with her dad, but having Charlie around was probably the best present anyone could have given him. 

That evening, they set about learning the returning spell in earnest. After several hours they hadn’t gotten much past the starting posture for holding the wand. They were about to give up for the night when Meredith sauntered into the common room.

“What are you two up to?” she asked in her usual boisterous way. 

“Nothing.” replied Charlie quickly, looking incredibly suspicious.

Meredith, while being very kind and protective of her first-year charges, was also no fool. She tromped over and grabbed the book they were working from. Charlie and Kuro waited nervously as they watched Meredith’s brow furrow and twist. “That’s a tricky bit of magic for a first-year. What do you want this for?”

Charlie started making very bad and unbelievable excuses, but Kuro had another idea. If anyone was going to help them, it would be Meredith. Also, she was a fifth-year. She could probably cast the spell in her sleep. Maybe she could teach them to do it. 

After a few tries, Kuro managed to stop Charlie explaining how they she had accidentally brought a magical lamp with a genie inside back with her on the train and how they needed to return it to its rightful owner before the genie got angry. 

He started to explain the truth. As he spoke, Meredith's usually bright face became darker and darker. When he got to the part about Bella forging a note to mark Kuro as a thief, she exploded.

“She did what?” Meredith bellowed loudly enough to rattle windows. “Kuro come with me.”

Meredith grabbed Kuro’s arm and dragged him out of the common room, back into the halls of the school. She stormed down several flights of stairs and tromped loudly through the labyrinth of dungeons. 

“Where are we going?” asked Kuro as he tripped along behind Meredith, stuck firmly in her strong grip. 

“Slytherin,” she growled.

If this really was the route to Slytherin house, it explained why they were always last to breakfast. They had walked so far and deep that he imagined they must be out under the lake. 

They came to a sudden halt along an empty stretch of damp stone corridor. Meredith pounded on the wall and yelled. “Belladonna. Get out here.”

Kuro worried that Meredith had gone mad, but a few moments later the stones in the wall shifted and split, revealing a large rectangular door that swung open. In it stood Bella, looking half assembled and annoyed. 

“What’s with the racket Mer?” Bella asked before she saw the boiling rage in Meredith’s eyes and noticed Kuro, half hidden behind her. Bella’s eyes went wide and she slammed the door.

“Don’t you dare,” Meredith snarled. “You talk to me or you talk you McGonagall. Your choice.”

The door slowly creaked open again. “What do you want, Thrump.”

“I want you to explain to my why, exactly, truthfully, you are not on the Slytherin team this year?” Meredith’s eyes had narrowed murderously

“Didn’t he tell you?” 

“I want you to tell me.” Meredith stood back, crossed her arms and waited.

“Casting spells outside of school,” replied Bella coldly. 

“That’s it?” replied Meredith, even more icily, “Nothing to do with burgling a nice old man’s shop?”

Bella stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her, which vanished into the stonework of the hallway without a trace. The two older girls glared violently at each other for a long time and Kuro desperately wished to be somewhere else. It looked like either one of them could explode at any moment. 

  
  


Bella started in a hushed tone. “The auror said he’d keep that a secret. No harm was done. The brooms went back, the shopkeeper forgave us. Just a stupid mistake. Then this monster shows up at school, probably telling everyone.”

“First I’ve heard of it.” replied Meredith.

Their voices started to rise, like a slow burning fuse.

“He got me arrested,”

“You did that yourself,” 

“He attacked me.”

“He’s eleven.”

“He’s a menace.”

“You framed him!”

“He deserved it! Look at what he did to my eye!”

“In self-defence!”

Their voices were cracking and echoing down the stone corridor. He couldn’t believe that anyone would get this angry on his behalf. Kuro couldn’t even get this angry on his own behalf.

“He is a thief!”

“So are you!”

“You don’t understand! You don’t know what it’s like! To be constantly beaten by rich kids just because you can’t afford a fancy broom!”

“I know exactly what that’s like. I make do just fine with the House brooms!”

“You’re just a beater! It’s not the same!”

“Just a beater? Just a beater!”

“He got me kicked off the quidditch team. It’s his fault. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at and he ruined it.”

“He’s one of us, Bella. One. of. us.”

“Seph broke up with me.”

“Not his fault.”

Tears were streaming down both girls’ cheeks and their voices had turned very cold

“I thought better of you, Belladonna” 

“I thought we were friends, Thrump”

“So did I.”

They reached for their wands. Kuro didn’t want this. He didn’t want anyone to get in trouble, or get hurt, or killed. He grabbed onto Meredith’s arm with both hands, trying to stop her attack. He was little more than a nuisance to the huge girl. He dangled helplessly from her arm. “Please, don’t! not again!” he pleaded. “I’m sorry, Bella.”

He waited for the spells to start flying but the girls just stood, pointing wands at each other, tears flowing openly. 

  
“You’re sorry? You are sorry?” Bella choked on her tears and anger. Slowly, she lowered her wand. “You’ve made your point, Thrump. Go. Please, go.” She walked up to the nondescript patch of wall and whispered something to it. The door reappeared and she walked inside. Just as the door was closing Kuro heard her mutter in an exasperated voice, “Hufflepuffs...”


	16. The Locket

Once safely back in the Hufflepuff common room, with tears dried and breathing back to normal, Kuro asked Meredith a something that hadn’t made sense in their shouting match. “Meredith, what did you mean when you said that I was ‘one of you?’”

“You’re an orphan, right? Like me and Bella.” She looked at Kuro with a sad sort of empathy.

“No, I’m not.” Kuro replied.

“What? I thought you’d lost your parents. You don’t even know your last name.” 

“I don’t have parents,” Kuro informed her.

“What?” She shook her head and laughed at Kuro as though he had just claimed to be a very talkative teapot. “You’re a funny kid. Of course you do. Everyone’s got parents. Even if you don’t know who they are. Doesn’t matter, though. You’re alone, like us. We don’t have anyone looking out for us, so we look out for each other. Or we’re supposed to.” Meredith sighed. “Bella forgets that sometimes. She’s got a good heart, when she remembers to use it. She just tries too hard to prove that she’s as good as the kids with proper families.”

She smiled and ruffled Kuro’s hair. “Get to bed. We’ll work on that spell of yours another day.”

They shuffled off to their respective dorms leaving Charlie very lost and confused by the crackling fire. 

The next day was Christmas eve. Meredith refused on moral grounds to do any work at all and instead forced as many students as she could outside for a snowball fight. She challenged a match of Hufflepuff versus everyone, which was going very well at first. 

Witches and wizards, broadly speaking, never learned how to throw a ball properly. Athletics were thought to be for muggles who didn’t have better ways to get things done. The couple of practiced quidditch chasers were the only ones that could really hit anyone, and the unexpected addition of Hagrid to the Hufflepuff side provided an unfair advantage until the wands came out. Soon, the four Hufflepuffs were sorely outmatched by a battery of snow cannons and fortified walls of ice. The battle raged on until late in the afternoon until everyone was exhausted and caked in snow to continue. When they went inside McGonagall, herself, served them all hot cocoa that she transfigured from a single chocolate bar. 

Bella was notably missing from the battle. 

Charlie tried to keep Kuro and Merideth up as late as possible telling ghost stories. She was a very good storyteller, though some of her haunting climaxes were diminished by the fact that there was an actual ghost in the room with them, listening. 

Far too late at night, Kuro climbed exhausted and happy into bed and went to sleep.

He woke earlier than he would have liked due to Charlie’s excited laughter echoing up from the common room. He wished the still-sleeping Graeae a happy Christmas, hopped out of bed and nearly broke his neck tripping on a pile of junk and paper someone had left at the foot of his bed. He cursed and blearily made his way out to see what Charlie was so excited about.

“Presents!” she shouted. She was wearing a oversized red sock on her head and grinning furiously. “Happy Christmas! Get your presents so we can open them.”

“I don’t get presents,” Kuro yawned. “But I’d like to watch you open yours.”

Charlie looked affronted. “You had better have presents. I got you one.” 

“You did?” Kuro asked in shock. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you. You have to open it. Don’t you know how how this works?” 

“No.” Kuro admitted. “I’ve never gotten a present before.”

“Well go and get them and I’ll show you.” she shooed him out, back to his dorm. 

Kuro returned uncertainly to his room. He stepped inside and his jaw fell open. The pile of trash he’d tripped over wasn’t trash at all. It was a pile of packages. A pile. Some were neatly wrapped in shimmering multicoloured paper with bows, others roughly wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine for the post. He had to wrap them in a bedsheet to get them all back to the common room in one trip. By the time he got back, Meredith was there, too, groggily sorting through her pile of packages. 

“What’s going on?” Kuro stuttered. 

“Christmas!” Charlie exclaimed.

“But where did they all come from?” 

“That’s what the cards are for. They tell you who sent them.” she explained patiently. She went on to describe the elaborate ritual for opening presents. They first had to be appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. One had to admire the paper and the bow and the effort that was put into wrapping it. Then each needed to be gently handled and shaken so that one could guess their contents. Only then could they be opened.

They all had one matching package, a small square white box with a very neat red bow and a card with “M.M.” written on it in impeccable handwriting. “That’s from Professor McGonagall, same every year.” said Meredith. “Go on, pull the bow.” 

Kuro pulled the red bow and the box started to transform. It bloomed like a flower, each of the petals becoming thick and full transforming into a beautifully arranged collection of lollies, toffees, and candied apples with a small fleet of licorice brooms flying in circles around it.

“She’s just showing off,” said Meredith, opening her own and picking out a toffee to chew on. “Word to the wise. The licorice brooms are vile but McGonagall loves them. I think she gives them to us so we’ll share them with her.”

They started opening presents in turn. Kuro started with one from Mary. It was a collection of muggle ballpoint pens and automatic pencils. The card read “I know you have as much trouble with quills as I do. Let’s start a revolution. This year pencils, next year laptop computers. Merry Christmas, Mary.”

Edward had sent Kuro and Charlie an assortment of Weasley Wizard Wheezes products. Kuro’s included a cream that would cause moustaches to grow, and a small collection of very dangerous looking fireworks. He had given Charlie a brush that changed the user’s hairstyle at random. She was distracted for the next fifteen minutes trying different hairstyles, all of them shocking and terrible. 

Charlie had bought Kuro a treats for Graeae and stuffed mouse toy with catnip in it. “She deserves a Christmas, too,” she explained.

Kuro looked at all the wonderful things his friends had given him and felt very guilty. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Course you didn’t,” Charlie replied while admiring her latest hairstyle. It was a large pompadour in the shape of a sailing ship. “We all know you don’t have any money. That’s not the point. We just wanted you to have a proper Christmas.”

Kuro tried to hide his tears by digging out another box. It was a small and simply wrapped package and the card said it was from Sabine El-Asar. Meredith piped up again, though her Jaw was mostly glued closed by toffee. “That’ll be a book.” She mumbled. 

Kuro opened it and it was, indeed, a book, ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard.’ “How did you know?” he asked.

“Sabine’s pretty predictable,” she replied, waving a new copy of ‘The Adventures of Balthazar Saeed.’ 

“Do you know him, I mean her?” asked Kuro confounded.

“Of course, she’s my case worker. Has been for years. She’s great, tries really hard. Tough to get me adopted, though, when I’m bigger than most of the dads.” 

Kuro had a sudden sinking feeling that he had been very mistaken in his suspicions of Mrs. El-Asar. He doubted that Potter would have been secretly working with all of the orphaned children at Hogwarts for the past several years. He was left with a haunting feeling that she might actually be the kind and compassionate person that she pretended to be. He tried to banish that idea by convincing himself that she was, at least, reporting to Potter and that the strange and nonsensical answers he’d been giving her were not completely without cause. 

There were two matching and completely baffling packages for Charlie and Kuro. The cards simply said “Happy Christmas. Love, Molly.” Inside were matching knitted wool jumpers in the house colors, black with a large yellow letter K for Kuro and C for Charlie. 

The jumpers were the same size, so Charlie’s was too short for her and Kuro’s was too large. His sleeves hung comically off of the ends of his arms while hers barely made it past her elbows. It didn’t make sense why anyone would have made these for them and wondered if it were a mistake. If it were a mistake, it seemed to them that someone had gone to an awful lot of effort to make a clerical error. Since the mystery couldn’t be solved at that moment, they moved on. 

Kuro had another mysterious package. It was soft and pliable, which Charlie had taught him meant that it was clothes. He opened the card. It was unsigned but had a note in a sloppy scrawl, “Kuro, For my first Christmas at Hogwarts, I was given something special and it made all the difference in the world. I thought it right to pay that forward. Use it well.”

That didn’t make any sense at all, but he opened the package, regardless. Inside was a nice brown leather book bag with a brass letter K on the buckle. It was sturdy and well made and still smelled fresh. He threw it over his shoulder and dropped in his copy of Beedle the Bard to try it out. It slid in more easily than it should and after Kuro let it go there was a sound of fluttering pages and an audible thunk from inside the bag, as though the book had dropped several feet and landed on something hard. Kuro looked in the bag. 

Inside was a large, dimly lit space filled with shelves and drawers. Way down at the bottom, well out of reach was the now slightly battered copy of Beedle the Bard. He couldn’t reach the book, but he found that the mouth of the bag would stretch quite wide. He laid the bag down and climbed inside. He emerged moments later with his book to find Meredith and Charlie staring open-mouthed at him.

The three of them played with the mysterious bag for a while. They worked to see what the largest thing they could put inside was. They managed a large potted plant and a wooden stool, but the armchair got stuck and they had a hard time retrieving it. Meredith had to haul on the leg of the chair she could reach while the two other children pulled the bag in the other direction. 

Meredith was very impressed with it and said that she thought those kinds of charms were really strictly controlled. You weren’t allowed to just throw them on anything because muggles might find them. “Who sent it?” she wondered.

“Dunno,” said Kuro. “I can’t think of anyone that cares enough about me to bother.” It was a vexing mystery, but he wasn’t about to let that ruin such a wonderful gift. 

Kuro’s last package was nearly lost among the pile of torn wrappings. It was a small and hastily wrapped in writing parchment. The note, written on another piece of torn parchment read only “I’m sorry.”

He tore it open to find a bright, shiny galleon. Had Bella really retrieved it from the lake? No, Kuro realized. Slytherin house was under the lake. She had it the whole time. It didn’t matter, it was back. He ran to get his wand to make absolutely certain it was the right one. His crooked twig spun and pointed directly at the coin. “Look! Charlie, look! She gave it back!”

Charlie didn’t respond. She was sitting very still and quiet, clutching something tight to her chest.

This seemed very wrong to Kuro. Charlie never sat quietly. Kuro didn’t think her capable. Charlie was unflappably passionate. She could be ecstatic, furious, devastated, exuberant, but never subdued, never quiet. “Charlie, what’s wrong?”

“What?” she said in a sad, soft voice. “It’s nothing. Just…” she pushed the card over to Kuro.

“My dearest Charlotte, I’m sorry you couldn’t make it home for the holiday. I hope you are with friends there. We’re all fine here, despite the snow. You should always be with family for the Christmas, so I thought I should finally pass this along to you. If you can’t be close to us, at least you can have us close to you. It was your mother’s. She would want you to have it. Keep it close to your heart, as you are always in ours.

Merry Christmas.

Love,

Dad.”

“It’s my mother’s locket.” said Charlie, wiping a tear from her eye. She opened the small silver case delicately to look at the photos inside. “It’s my mum and dad from before I was born... Have I ever told you about my mom?”

Kuro shook his head.

“Dad says she was a great witch. An enchantress. I didn’t know her much, though. She disappeared when I was too small to remember. Nobody knew where. Just vanished one day without a trace. She came back one day when I was five. She had been kidnapped by a dark wizard. The aurors finally tracked her down and freed her. For two months it was like she’d never been gone, like I had a whole family. Then the dark wizard came back, came in the night for her and… we found her the next day lying in the field… gone.”

She held up the tiny photos of a young man and woman, looking at each other adoringly from either side of the locket. “She was really smart and pretty and nice, and...” She trailed off. 

Kuro’s heart stopped when he saw the photo. He knew her. She was younger and looked happier and healthier than he remembered, but that young witch in the picture haunted his nightmares. “What was her name?” he asked with what little breath he could muster. 

“Helena,” replied Charlie. “It’s a pretty name.”

“Helena Morris…” muttered Kuro in horror. It was her. Without a doubt it was the woman that had been his tutor and caregiver for the first years of his life. It made a sick sort of sense. It was how Phineas thought. He needed someone to raise a young child, so he just found someone that was already doing it. No need for training or uncertainty about qualifications. It was deeply, sickly rational. Of all the cruelties that he had suffered, of all the beatings and hardships he’d gone through, the feeling in his heart at that moment far worse than any of them. 

Kuro had always feared his master, but he had never hated him. Now, now Kuro understood what it meant to truly hate someone. What they meant when they talked about a dark wizard, when they talked about evil. He had stolen Charlie’s mother, and then he had make Kuro watch as he murdered her for the crime of going home to her family. 

“How do you know her maiden name?” asked Charlie innocently. 

It was too much. Kuro ran. He dropped everything and ran from the common room. He flew through the halls as fast as his feet could carry him, not even looking where he was going. 


	17. Christmas Dinner

Kuro was sitting huddled in the corner of a dungeon cell, wishing the rats would eat him so he never had to face Charlie again when a golden coin bounced and rolled into the cell and landed at his feet. Meredith followed shortly after holding her wand.

“I figured out that returning charm,” she said, trying to get Kuro to smile. “That coin really knows who owns it.”

Kuro did not look up.

“What’s wrong Kuro? What’s going on?” She sat down beside him on the stone floor and pulled her knees up to her chest to mirror Kuro. “Charlie’s beside herself thinking she did something wrong. You need to go talk to her.”

“I can’t,” said Kuro.

“Of course you can. Whatever it is, Charlie will understand.” She put a large comforting hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t understand. I can’t.” Kuro repeated. 

“You need to face these things. Trust me. I’ll be there to help. I promise. You can to it.”

Maybe she was right. Maybe he could tell her. Maybe he should. If there was any person who deserved to know the truth, it was Charlie. It was going to hurt, he knew that. It was probably going to hurt a lot. It might even kill him, but it didn’t matter. She had her mother stolen away from her. She deserved to know why.

He nodded slowly and let Meredith help him up and lead him back to their common room. Just thinking about what he had to say made him twist his knuckles painfully. 

They climbed through the round oak door into the common room where Charlie was still sitting. She looked hurt and confused and her sailing ship hairstyle was listing badly to one side. 

Kuro took a deep breath and looked around to make sure there were no knives within reach. He could already feel the need to punish himself growing.

“Charlie,” he said to the floor, unable to meet her eyes. “I know what happened to your mother.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie said, “I just told you what happened to her.”

“No, I mean...” Kuro struggled to continue. He had involuntarily taken one of his fingers on his right hand in a firm grip with his left and was starting to twist. “I know why. I was there.” 

Pop. His knuckle dislocated sending a bolt of pain up his arm. His knees buckled under the shock, but he managed to stay standing. 

Charlie’s face twisted in confusion and sorrow, but she hadn’t noticed what he was doing to himself yet. That was good. She would probably try to stop him. 

“My master…” pop, another finger flopped loosely out of its socket. Tears were streaming down his face as he forced out the next words. “He took her…” pop “To raise me.” pop. His knees gave out and his head was getting light from the pain. He fell to the floor and started slamming his head against it.

“What are you doing?” cried Charlie.

“He made me watch...” Kkuro slammed his head against the floor even harder. “When he killed her.” The room was spinning, he saw blood on the hardwood. “My master was Phineas Hearn,” Kuro confessed. The compulsion to punish himself overwhelmed him, he grabbed one of the pens that Mary had given him and plunged it towards his heart with his good hand.

A blast of red sparks exploded over his back before he could drive it home. “Stupefy!” Meredith shouted and the world went dark.

He woke in a familiar bed. White sheets, white walls, white light. It was the hospital wing. He flexed his hand. It was stiff and sore, but the fingers all worked and were facing the right directions. His head ached, but there was no cut or blood. His heart was unpunctured, but felt heavy and tired for other reasons.

“How are you feeling?” The worried voice beside him sounded familiar, but strange. He looked over to see Professor McGonagall looking very odd. Her normally stiff face looked soft and tired. Her brow was furrowed, but in the wrong direction, making her look concerned and compassionate rather than angry.

He waited a moment before answering, taking time to see if the compulsion to stab himself would return. “Okay, I think,” said Kuro. 

“Good.” said the Headmistress, “I think, that we need to have a talk.”

Kuro had already had a very difficult day and really wasn’t prepared for this at all. He pulled the covers up over him and tried to hide. 

“Earlier today, my gift opening was interrupted by a young woman confessing to crimes against you and others and demanding just punishment.” 

Kuro peeked back out over the blanket. 

“Belladonna insisted that you were innocent and claimed full responsibility for the trouble at the quidditch match and admitted to forging the note. I had to check her for curses to be sure she hadn’t been ensorcelled.” She looked at him suspiciously. “I went to find you to discuss the situation only to find you broken, bleeding and unconscious, yet again. Meredith said that she’d had to stun you to stop you stabbing yourself. Is that true.”

Kuro nodded. 

“Meredith also told me that you claimed to be the servant of Phineas Hearn. Is that also true.”

“Please don’t make me tell you.” Kuro begged quietly from behind his blanket.

She pondered him for a moment. “Potter told me that you were cursed, but not much else. Is that what is does? It makes you punish yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Kuro muttered. “Maybe. That’s just how it is. If you break the rules you have to be punished.” 

McGonagall’s eyes became so soft and sad that she looked like a different person. “You are an enigma, Kuro. And I fear that I may have misjudged you. I’m sorry.”

Had she just apologized? Kuro was beginning to suspect strongly that Professor McGonagall was either very drunk, or had been replaced by a very poor impersonator.

“About these other notes,” she said uncertainly. “I will look into them. Are they none of them your’s?”

“No, they’re not.” Kuro muttered, afraid of being accused of lying again. “But it’s okay. We’re sorting it out.”

A more familiar look of incredulity and suspicion crept back into her face. “Sorting it out how? Nothing will be bettered by more rule breaking.”

“No rule breaking. I promise.” Kuro defended quickly.

“Well, I do prefer it if students can sort out problems on their own. If I had to step in every time there was a conflict I’d be regarded as a tyrant.”

Kuro refrained from informing her that she was already widely regarded as a tyrant.

“If it gets out of hand, though. Do come to me.” She almost looked like she was going to put a comforting hand on Kuro, but thought better of it. “Now, if you are up to it, Dinner is being served. You have a very worried friend waiting for you, and I don’t think you will want to miss this dinner.”

Kuro climbed a little hesitantly out of bed and allowed himself to be led to the great hall. Raucous noise was coming from within. There was a cacophony of strange and squeaky voices talking all at once. 

McGonagall opened the door to a madhouse. The small table for the twenty or so staff and students that had stayed for the Holidays had been extended to fit a hundred. Lining the benches were odd humanoid creatures, smaller than Kuro, with dark, mottled skin, huge bat-like ears, oversized eyes, and large noses shaped like various vegetables. Some were like pointed carrot, others round like pears and tomatoes. One unfortunate individual had one the size and shape of a summer squash. Half of them wore what look like tabards made of tea-towels with the Hogwarts crest on them. The others wore a panoply of mismatched clothing. They had socks of every colour, mismatched shoes, vibrant skirts, shirts, and scarves. They were standing on the benches engaging in what appeared to be competitive politeness.

“Allow me,” one would squeak as he picked up a platter and attempted to serve another.

“It is not my place, no, allow me. Let me be serving you,” another would respond deftly snatching the platter and trying to dish out some food before the duel of propriety could turn against her again.  

“It’s the Hogwarts house elf feast.” explained McGonagall. “These are the elves that cook your food, tend your fires, and keep the castle clean. Most students will never even see them, but the elves are just as much a part of this school as you are.” She had a look of exasperation as she spoke. “Once a year we ask them to come out of the kitchens and eat with us here. We make the meal for them, whatever they ask for. For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, what they ask for is always muggle takeaway.”

Kuro looked at the piles of food lining the tables. Far from the normal spreads of steaming roasts, freshly baked breads, and varied vegetables, the table was littered with cardboard containers filled with fried chicken, greasy curries, fish and chips, and hamburgers.

Kuro spotted Charlie, laughing and talking with a house elf who was proudly wearing charlie’s Christmas stocking on his head. Charlie also saw Kuro. She climbed off the bench and ran to him, but stopped before she reached him. She looked conflicted. Her eyebrows had a brief wrestling match as she decided what she felt, then she stormed up and punched him hard in the arm. “Stupid.” she said firmly. 

“What?” Kuro wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“That was stupid.” she repeated. “You didn’t have to tell me. Not if it was going to hurt you.”

“I did.” Kuro pleaded. “It was my fault. You had to know.”

“No I didn’t. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.” Charlie’s unflappable certainty was starting to shine through again. “You’re my friend. I don’t care where you came from. Now stop being dumb and come eat.”

Charlie was clearly furious at him, but the only thing he could do to appease her seemed to be eating chips and enjoying it. 

Dinner was mad. The elves talked all at once and barely managed to eat anything because they were being too deferential. 

“You should be eating the cheeseburger, the headmistress is wanting you to have it.”

“Oh no, I am not being worthy. You is the one that should be eating it.”

And so all of the best seats and best food went unclaimed due to the elves being too polite to take it. 

Some of them kept attempting to serve Kuro food and offer him drinks while others would chase them away saying “They is not to be served tonight. The Headmistress is ordering us to enjoy elfselves. They is wanting us to be the guests!” This would have been odd enough but more than once the one that chased the other away turned and asked “Can I gets the students anything? Anything at all.” 

Meredith explained a little between bites of butter chicken. “House elves are mostly slaves. Have been forever. They don’t really know how to be anything else. The ones here are allowed to be free if they want, though. That’s the ones with the weird clothes. The thing is, they’re not very good at it, being free. Being servants all they’ve ever done. McGonagall does this dinner for them for Christmas but a lot of them don’t understand, they get confused and keep trying to serve us.”

Kuro also saw Bella at the table. She was sitting with the other Slytherin students. He caught her eye and smiled. He wanted to thank her for returning his coin. He had mostly forgotten her other offences against him, now that he had it back. A quick look at her scarred eye reminded him that she probably had not. He smiled weakly at her, but she did not return it. She only nodded and returned to talking with her friends. Kuro wasn’t sure what this meant, but he had the sense that she wasn’t going to attack him again. 

“What’s up with those two over there?” Charlie asked, her mouth full of chips. She pointed to a pair of elves in teatowel uniforms that were standing apart from the rest, starting at a christmas tree as though it was going to eat them. 

“Contemplating treason,” growled a small rattling voice behind them. They turned to see a very old and decrepit elf dressed in a fowl old burlap sack. He was missing a leg and leaned heavily on a crutch fashioned from a broken leg of a stool. 

“Hello Kreacher,” said Merideth. “Keeping well?”

“No,” snapped the old elf. “Kreacher is broken and useless. Kreacher should be killed and made into compost for the gardens.”

“Always a pleasure to see you, Kreacher,” sighed Meredith. Turning to Kuro and Charlie, she said. “Kreacher is part of the old guard. Doesn’t go in for any of this freedom stuff. Comes to the dinner just to scowl at the other elves. They say he’s a war hero, though. Defend Hogwarts in a big battle.”

“Hello Kreacher,” said Charlie Brightly. “I’m Charlotte and this is Kuro.”

“Kreacher knows who you are,” Kreacher rasped. “Kreacher knows all the students. The Kuro likes his bacon crisp and sleeps by the fire. The Charlotte Cook leaves her dirty socks in the common room and needs to eat more greens. Kreacher is a proper house elf. Kreacher knows. Kreacher serves.” He spat angrily as he spoke and pointed angrily at the children as if threatening to kill them through good nutrition. 

A much younger house elf with a radish shaped nose in mismatched stockings and a violet tutu shooed Kreacher away. “Kreacher should not bother the young masters. Kreacher has been ordered to enjoy himself. Kreacher should eats cake.”

Kreacher snarled at the elf and skulked off to eat a pre-packaged pastry. The other elf bowed apologetically to the children. “Snibble begs that the young masters forgives Kreacher. Kreacher is having hard times.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Demanded Charlie. 

“Wrong with Kreacher? No,” Snibble replied. “Kreacher is right not wrong. Kreacher is a hero. Kreacher is being the best of us. Kreacher, he is being a proper elf. Kreacher is loyal to his master. Kreacher would die for his master. But poor Kreacher, his master is not wanting him. His master is wanting Kreacher to be a free elf. His master is a great friend of Elves but is not understanding elves.”

“But isn’t that a good thing?” wondered Charlie aloud. “Wouldn’t he want to be free? Everyone should be free.”

“Hush, please, Miss Charlotte Cook,” warned Snibble in a low squeak. “Miss Charlotte Cook might be upsetting slave elves. Snibble is thinking she is right. But some Elves is having different ideas. Some elves is not wanting to be free. They is thinking that elves is supposed to be slaves. They is thinking that a free elf is a bad elf. They is thinking a free elf is not a loyal elf.”

Charlie was not at all convinced. “Well what do you think?” she interrupted.

Snibble looked around for what other elves might be listening before speaking. “Snibble is thinking that loyalty is for earning not for owning. Snibble is thinking that if Snibble is free and Snibble chooses to stay and chooses to obey, Snibble is a good servant. Snibble is thinking that only a good master is deserving a good servant.”

As if to emphasize her point, she added, “Can Snibble gets the young masters anything? Anything at all.”

They all shook her heads and Snibble bowed again before scurrying off for the traditional opening of the crisps. 

“I still don’t get what’s up with the elves by the tree?”  said Charlie loudly over  the noise of dozens of popping crisp bags. 

“They are considering freeing themselves,” said Professor Flitwick who had appeared unexpectedly beside the students, teetering slightly and holding a large can of muggle beer. If it weren’t for his bushy white beard and flowing green robes, he could have almost been mistaken for one of the elves. “Professor McGonagall provides enough presents for every elf. Has every year since the war. Says they’ve as much right as any wizard to be free. I must say I agree. If one wishes to be free, they simply need to open one and claim the clothing inside, though It is not a decision made lightly.” Even drunk Flitwick sounded like he was delivering a lecture. 

“Why not,” demanded Charlie. “It should be easy.”

Flitwick shook his head a little sadly. “There will always be a wizard who will take on a house elf slave. But a free elf, they might have a very hard time finding work outside of Hogwarts. And there is elven tradition to be considered. Many house elves do not accept free elves. They believe them to have betrayed their most deeply held beliefs. Change is always difficult. It is not an easy time to be an elf.”

Kuro had remained quiet for all of this. He understood being a servant better than being a student and felt a sort of empathy with these house elves. He also remembered what Professor Crawley had said about his wand, about how he and elves both wanted to be quiet and unseen and that was why it chose him. He wondered if there might have been something more he had in common with them than that. 

Kuro’s reflections were interrupted by Professor Flitwick giving him a nudge in the ribs and asking if he’d made any progress on the spell he’d recommended.

“Oh,” Kuro said, trying to recollect his thoughts. “Yes, a bit. Meredith is helping.”

“Glad to hear it, boy.” he beamed a little drunkenly at Kuro. “Glad to hear it. Well done Meredith, knew you were a good pick for Prefect. Happy Christmas, All. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to fetch one of those chocolate covered wafer bars before they are all gone. Have you tried them? They are quite horrible.”

Dinner drew to a close but it took some time for the students to escape the overwhelming niceties of the Elves. They made their way back to their dorm, laden with as many plastic-wrapped snack cakes, sodas, and chocolate bars as they were unable to refuse from the elves, and went to bed. Kuro noted that the mess of wrapping had gone, and his gifts had been neatly stacked by his bed. 

He felt a pang of guilt that the elves worked so tirelessly without notice. He took some of the candy that McGonagall had given him and wrapped it in a piece of parchment. On it he wrote “Dear Elves, Thank you. Merry Christmas, Kuro” and left it in the common room. 

The rest of the break passed much too quickly. Kuro and Charlie split their days between exploring and homework. The homework was very dull. Since students weren’t allowed to cast spells when away from school, it was all essays about troll migrations, alchemical algorithms, and transmutation theory. No actual magic at all. Fortunately Meredith was equally bored with her own work and was more than happy to help her juniors with what she claimed was much more interesting stuff. 

In the evenings, they practiced spells. Charlie was quite good at them and was extremely happy to give Kuro lots of advice. He was making slow, but steady progress and could now reliably get his wand to glow, mend a torn sheet of paper, and make an artichoke waltz. 

Kuro worried about charlie. She acted as though everything were fine, that what Kuro had said about her mother had not bothered her at all. But even though she played and laughed and complained as normal, her hand often went to her chest where her locket hung to make sure it was still there. Kuro also noticed that when she thought nobody was around, her bluster would fade and she would look very sad and lonely. 

They had also been working on the returning charm with Meredith. Charlie had a decent handle on it and could make Kuro’s shoes walk over to him and his coin bounce and roll towards him, but not even Meredith hadn’t managed to get it to return an IOU note back to the writer. “Time for some expert advice.” Meredith said over breakfast on new year’s eve. “We’re not getting anywhere with the spell we have and everyone will be back soon. Maybe it doesn’t work on paper, or maybe notes just don’t know who own them. I don’t know. I’m going to ask flitwick if there are other charms that might do the trick.”

Charlie and Kuro celebrated their dwindling hours of freedom as best they could, running through the snow covered fields, climbing towers and generally being a nuisance to the people in the paintings as they laughed and shouted while riding the moving staircases and sliding down banisters. 

As night settled on the last day in December, they were startled by explosions outside. They ran to the windows to see fireworks bursting in the sky over hogwarts, going up one after another. Kuro grabbed Charlie and most of the fireworks that Edward had sent him and ran to join in. 

In the snowy field, they found a couple of Gryffindor students that had also received some Weasley Wiz-Bangs. Kuro added his few to the pile and they all hooted and cheered as showers of sparks exploded overhead. One burst into the shape a great glittering tree which blossomed and it’s flowers shot off as new brilliant comets of sparks. Another loosed a herd of gleaming horses whose hooves left trails of golden glitter as they stampeded across the sky. Yet another manifested as a great dragon that twinkled red and orange as it swept menacingly around the grounds before bursting into a soft rain of luminous blue snowflakes. 

Their display had attracted most of the remaining residents of the school. Hagrid was the first to join in, followed shortly by many of the other students and most of the remaining teachers. When the fireworks ran out Ms. Crawley and Professor Flitwick launched a display of their own, trying to upstage each other with streams of sparks and explosions and coloured lights from their wands. Slughorn provided commentary, mostly noting how much more elaborate but subtle the fireworks displays were when he visited the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and how he had personally taught the Weasley brothers, who ran the shop where the fireworks were made. “Brilliant boys,” he said “Always knew they’d make something of themselves.”

It all ended with a startling climax as an enormous white tiger made of smoke and lightning roared down from the clouds. Students dove for cover as it crashed down on top of them, filling the field with thick white smoke. 

The smoke began to swirl in a tighter and tighter vortex until it coalesced into Professor McGonagall. Her entrance earned a round of polite applause from the other teachers while the students picked themselves up off the ground and out of the bushes they had dived into. 

“Happy new year, everyone.” She said with a tight smile. “It is now past midnight, and I would encourage all of the students to return to their dormitories.” She said it in the typical McGonagall fashion, where argument and dissention were all but impossible. 

They shuffled back into their dorms, at first complaining about having to do so, but then moving on to complain about how cold and tired they were from standing out in the snow for so long. 

Kuro put on his Pyjamas and had a thought of the elves before he went to sleep. He had run out of every kind of candy except the licorice brooms, which he wouldn’t wish on anyone, but he did still have a couple of small remaining fireworks that they hadn’t managed to carry outside. He put a small note on it that read. “Happy New year, Elves. Please enjoy.” He went to put it in the common room for them to find, but found Charlie there, instead. 

She was sitting at one of the tables, illuminated by a beam of moonlight that was falling through a half snow-covered window. She was had her locket open and was looking at the pictures inside with such sadness that it hurt Kuro’s chest just to watch.

He froze, not sure what to do. Should he quietly retreat and leave her to her thoughts? Or should he try to talk to her? What would he even say? “I’m sorry I stole your mother and got her killed.” didn’t seem like a very comforting way to open the new year. His decision was made for him, though, by a log in the low-burning fire which decided it would be a good time to pop and crack.

Charlie’s head snapped up, startled by the noise. She almost missed Kuro in the shadows of the room but the bright red firework caught her eye. She quickly stowed her locket and put on a brave face.

“Hey!” she said brightly. “I didn’t know you were still up.”

“I was just turning in.” replied Kuro. “But I was just going to give the elves something for new years.” He held up the small firework.

“Why?” Charlie asked. 

“I don’t know,” Kuro admitted. “We just had fun with the fireworks, I thought they might want to too.”

“You’re weird,” she informed him. 

“You too,” agreed Kuro. 

“Thanks!” 

Neither moved for a while, both wanting to say something neither able to. Eventually, the weight of silence became too much and Kuro managed to ask “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Charlie, waving it off as if it were a silly question. “Just… thinking.”

“Okay. I’ll let you think,” said Kuro turning to leave, but wishing there were more he could do for his friend.

He left the firework and went back towards his dorm. As he reached for the handle to the hallway, Charlie spoke. “Kuro,” she said in an unusually quiet voice. “McGonagall said… I shouldn’t ask you things. That it could hurt you.”

Kuro stopped. It was true, there were a lot of things that he wanted to tell her that he couldn’t. He wished McGonagall hadn’t said anything. He would rather endure the pain of punishment than the look of sadness in Charlie’s eyes. “It might, yeah. But it’s fine, I don’t mind. I’m used to it” he said.

“That’s okay, don’t worry about it.” Charlie tried to hide the pleading in her voice, but she was a bad liar. “Sleep well!”

Kuro moved to leave again, but his legs were like lead. “What do you want to know?” he asked. 

“Nothing.” she insisted. “Just go to bed. It’s fine, really.”

Kuro thought hard about what Phineas’ orders had been. Keep him secret, never reveal anything about him or what he does or where he goes. Phineas had only ever been concerned with himself, he’d never thought to order Kuro to silence about the woman that had died other than Phineas’ involvement in it. With some creativity, Kuro could work around his orders. Just like he never talked directly to anybody or actually stole anything, he could talk about Helena. 

He walked over and sat on the floor at Charlie’s feet. “No. Ask me whatever you want. If I can’t tell you, I won’t. But if I can, I want to.”

Charlie had run out of energy to pretend. She pulled out the locket again and looked into it. “It’s just… I never got to know her. What was she like?”

Kuro found that he could tell Charlie that. “I don’t remember that well,” he started, grabbing a warm quilt from a sofa and wrapping himself in it. I was very young when… when she was around. But I remember her being soft, and her voice was pretty. She told me stories. Some of them I found in the book that Sabine gave me, like ‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’. She was really patient, she taught me to read and count and cook and clean.”

They talked long into the night. Kuro drew out every faint memory he had of her and carefully wove Phineas out of the stories. Charlie listened, teary eyed but always asking for more. The sky was getting light by the time he ran out of words. 

  
“Thank you,” was all that Charlie was able to say at the end of it all. She slid off her chair and smiled weakly at Kuro before shuffling off to bed, still clutching her locket.


	18. Hogwarts, A History

On the second of January, the other children returned and the halls of Hogwarts echoed once more with the noise of students. 

Kuro and Charlie joined the throng of returnees in the dining hall for the back-to-school feast. The Christmas trees and giant menorah had been removed and it was back to its usual self. Hundreds of floating candles drifted about the room and the enchanted ceiling was cloudy, with a bit of gentle illusory snow falling from it. 

They found Edward and Mary already at the Hufflepuff table piling their plates with roast beef and yorkshire puddings. Charlie took one look at Mary and exclaimed “Your hair looks amazing!”

Mary’s thick black hair had been woven into dozens of ropelike braids that coiled around her head and tumbled down her back. “Oh my gosh! So does yours!” Mary replied immediately.

Charlie’s straw-like blonde hair was standing on end in a violet tipped mohawk. She had been using the Weasley joke brush every day and it never failed to produce something noteworthy.

Their enthusiasm was interrupted by insipid tittering from the table behind them. They turned to find that Evelyn had sat directly behind them at the Ravenclaw table. Normally she sat as far from them as possible. Kuro doubted that it had been by accident. She tossed her flawless cascade of golden curls back over her shoulders and beamed at them with her vibrant smile.

“So good to see you again,” she said with malicious civility. “And it’s so nice to see that you’ve done… something with your hair.” Charlie almost thanked her, mistaking it for a genuine compliment but Evelyn continued before she had a chance. “It’s so heartening to see people like you aspire to something more than what you are.”

She and her neighbors erupted with laughter. Mary was barely phased. She responded with a very rude gesture and returned to eating. Charlie was more deeply wounded and sulked into her mashed potatoes. 

Kuro, hoping to lighten the mood, turned to ask Edward about his holiday. Edward, though, had buried his face in his hands and was staring at Kuro between his fingers with a look of absolute horror. “Where did you get that?” he croaked.

“What? Oh this?” Kuro held up his book bag proudly. “I don’t know. It was a surprise gift. It’s very suspicious.”

“No.” Edward corrected. “The jumper. Where did you get that jumper?”

Kuro had forgotten he was wearing the mysterious jumper that he’d received for christmas. Meredith had been able to shrink it magically to fit Kuro. It was very warm and soft and Kuro had grown quite fond of it. “Oh, this? Someone named Molly sent it by mistake I think. I really like it. Charlie got one too. Why do you ask?”

“I cannot believe she sent you one.” Edward groaned in an unusual display of emotion.

“I got one too,” added Mary angrily. “I had a heck of a time explaining why an owl had delivered a jumper on Christmas eve. Couldn’t you just use ordinary post?”

Edward groaned again and tried to hide under the table. “I’m so embarrassed. Nana Weasley knits them for all the kids every year. I never thought she’d send them to you. I’m so sorry.” 

“Wait a minute,” said Charlie. She stood and leaned over the table to interrogate Edward more closely. “Nana Weasley? Like from Weasley Wizard Wheezes? Who exactly is your family?”

Kuro pulled Charlie back into her seat and thanked Mary loudly for the pens she had given him. Kuro had noticed that they had gathered a bit too much attention from the Ravenclaw bench behind them. Edward mouthed a silent “Thank you” to Kuro before busying himself with his chicken leg. 

Warm greetings and exuberant chatter died down and everyone got about the important business of eating. The feast was magnificent. Meats, fish, soups, and salads were piled high. Everything was fresh and hot and perfectly prepared. Kuro ate heartily, though since christmas dinner, he had begun to wonder if the cooks ate as well as the students. 

During a particularly quiet lull in conversation, Evelyn started to loudly recount her christmas holiday to her current collection of friends. Kuro did his best to ignore her. Her haughty voice was worse than nails on a chalkboard. It became impossible to block her out, though, she had turned sideways and was speaking so as to make sure all around could hear her.

“I’ve brought my broom back with me, as well,” she bragged. “Mother explained that the trauma of having my broom shattered by that Thrump girl had made me quite fearful of the flimsy old school brooms. It’s not true, of course, but mother does worry so.”

Kuro chewed some carrots very loudly and made a point of not turning around. He looked sideways down the table to see that Meredith, sitting several seats down, was doing much the same.

She continued more quietly for a while but her voice grew loud again as she began a new story, but not for any discernable reason. “I was reading the most interesting thing. My father received the new revised edition of ‘Hogwarts, a History’ for Christmas. I was flipping through some of the more recent stuff at the back and did you know there hasn’t been a defense against the dark arts teacher that has lasted more than two years in almost twenty. There’s been a mad collection of them and they all sound like nutters. There was even a werewolf,” she said that line very loudly and clearly and sounded like she had turned to face their table to do it, but Kuro couldn’t make sense of why. “”Can’t think of his name just now. Something terribly common, if I recall. Nothing worth remembering.”

She recounted some of the other teachers, a mad old auror, a celebrity writer that had lost his mind, a half-goblin, and more. She also wished aloud that their current professor, Ms. Crawley would follow tradition as she found her unpleasant and ugly.

Kuro scowled at the suggestion. Crawley was Kuro’s favourite teacher. He assumed that Evelyn didn’t like her because Ms. Crawley to clever to fall for Evelyn’s false charm. She probably saw right through Evelyn. 

Thankfully, Evelyn’s ramblings quieted down enough for Kuro to enjoy his meal again. He attempted to join back in the conversation that Charlie had been quite successfully maintaining on her own. When he looked across the table at Edward, though, something seemed off. Edward was staring fixedly at his plate. His hands were holding his knife and fork as though to cut his roast beef, but they were not moving. 

“Are you alright Edward?” asked Kuro, letting Charlie’s recounting of the Christmas eve snowball fight cover his voice from eavesdroppers. “Edward?” he repeated when Edward did not respond.

“What?” Edward looked up suddenly and then just as quickly back down to his plate. “Yes. Thank you I’d love some,” he said in his normal monotone. 

Kuro, not quite sure what to do, picked up a gravy boat and passed it over as if that had been what he’d asked in the first place. “What’s going on?” Kuro whispered as he leaned closer. 

“Nothing,” said Edward mechanically. “I mean… I’ll tell you later. After dinner, let’s go for a walk. I could use a walk.” 

Kuro’s curiosity made the rest of dinner pass agonizingly slowly and even the vast array of puddings available for dessert held little interest for him. When the food finally vanished and the rest of the students headed off to their houses, Edward pulled Kuro, Charlie and Mary aside and led them up a flight of stairs and into a room that Kuro had never been in.

He had passed it many times on his way to charms class. It had a large, impressive looking door that was always open, but much like the trophy room it was rarely visited. In a castle full of magic and mysteries, an open door in an easily found hallway was the least interesting thing you could find. There was a brass sign above the door that Kuro had never bothered to read that said “Hall of Heroes.”

Edward pulled them inside. The room was filled with paintings, much like the rest of the castle, but these were a little different. They all looked new, without the signs of wear and age that the ones in the halls showed. Also the characters in all of them were silent and barely moved. They stood strongly as if on guard duty, staring out of their frames stoically, barely blinking.

Kuro disliked the room almost immediately as the largest painting in it was a nearly life sized rendition of Harry Potter. Potter was younger, maybe nineteen or twenty. He was standing victoriously in front of a smoking hogwarts. He had been painted to look as though he had been through a great battle and had come out of it with nothing more than a singed robe. Kuro considered how flammable the oil painting might be.

Charlie interrupted his arsenous thoughts by shouting, “That’s Professor Longbottom!” There was another painting of a collection of Teenagers and teachers from Hogwarts standing together. A much younger version of their herbology professor was among them, standing close to a lanky ginger haired boy and a fierce looking girl with frizzy brown hair. Longbottom had a terrible haircut and looked awkward and a little frightened, but it was definitely him.

Continuing around the room, Kuro found a painting of Kreacher, the withered old elf he had met at Christmas dinner, leading a charge of his fellow elves. He held a pole with one of the hogwarts tea towels hanging from it like a military standard. Near that, a painting of a herd of centaurs, half-man half-horse creatures, standing in what looked like the forest at the edge of the school grounds. After that there was one of Hagrid surrounded a menagerie of magical beasts.

“What is this place?” asked mary, trying to make sense of the odd collection of characters staring out at her.

“It’s a memorial,” said Edward, His voice wavering uncharacteristically. “These are all the people that fought in the Battle of Hogwarts eleven years ago.”

Mary did not look as though that had answered anything. “What’s the Battle of Hogwarts?”

“Sorry, I guess muggles don’t know about the war.” Edward was obviously fighting to keep his voice steady.

Mary looked annoyed. She was often forced to ask about things that all the other children seemed to take for granted. She might have taken Edward to task for being inconsiderate, but he was obviously preoccupied with something.

“There was a terrible dark wizard that called himself Lord Voldemort. He was taking over the government and doing terrible things. He hated muggles and thought wizards should rule everything. There was a big battle at Hogwarts where he was killed by a man named Harry Potter, but a lot of good people died that day, too. People like my parents.” 

Edward was staring up at a painting of two wizards, a sandy haired man with green eyes, and a young woman and bubblegum pink hair. They were standing close together and holding hands. They both looked very sad and distant. 

“That’s my mom and dad,” said Edward as he gently stroked the edge of the frame. 

“I wonder if my dad knew them,” pondered Charlie. “He fought in the war, too.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mary to Edward, interrupting Charlie’s impending story before it could start. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” said Edward. “I didn’t get to know them. I was raised by my Grandparents and my godfather. But that’s not why I brought you up here. It’s what Evelyn said at dinner. I think she knows, so soon the whole school will, too. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but, well, my godfather thought it would be good for me if I could keep it a secret for a while. There’s a lot of prejudice.”

“What is it?” demanded Charlie, her patience for listening bursting like a balloon. 

“My mom, she was a metamorphmagus...” said Edward.

“That’s. So. Cool.” interrupted Charlie exuberantly. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“What does that mean?” asked Kuro. Mary looked relieved that she wasn’t the only one that didn’t know.

“It means she’s a shapeshifter.” explained Charlie, talking over Edward. “She can transform into anything. Does that mean you are one too?”

Edward was looking more stiff and tense than usual, staring solidly at the floor. “Yes.” he said hesitantly. “But, I’m not good at it. It’s hard to control. But that’s not what I needed to tell you. My dad, he was a teacher here once, a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He was the one Evelyn was talking about... the werewolf.”

Charlie took a large and obvious step back, and Mary gasped. “Werewolves are real?” she asked in astonishment. 

“Yes, of course.” answered Edward. “But I’m only half werewolf. I’m not contagious or anything and I don’t bite people when I transform. I don’t even have to transform, I can fight it if I need to. I’m not dangerous or anything, I promise. But my mind gets a little wolfish. That’s why I’m off sick all the time. Around the full moon, I go to Hagrid’s so he can look out for me when I’m a wolf. It’s me you saw that night with Fang in Hagrid’s hut. That’s Hagrid’s dog. I remember you coming and wanting to play with you. I’m sorry if I scared you at all. Also…”

Edward stopped talking and seemed to steel himself for something. He lifted his eyes to face his friends, and then did something that none of them expected. Something they didn’t even imagine him capable of. Edward relaxed. 

The tenseness in his posture and brow faded. His stiff expression and intense eyes softened and the features on his face began to change. His nose broadened and flattened a little. His eyes became rounded and fiercer. His hair fell out of its perfect part and became longer, thicker and shaggy. He smiled weakly at his friends, bearing his teeth and showing that his canines had grown long and pointed. He looked distinctly more wolf-like. 

“I’ve been trying to look normal all year,” Edward explained. “It takes a lot of concentration. If I get too excited or anything, I start changing shape kind of uncontrollably. It’s really embarrassing”

Kuro was trying to process it all. It was hard to imagine Edward being anything but entirely ordinary. The boy staring at him now seemed the opposite of everything Kuro had known him to be. He was slouching and and scruffy looked and full of feeling. He felt a pang of betrayal that Edward had kept this a secret from them, that he had pretended to be someone he wasn’t. On the other hand, Kuro knew that it would be wrong to hold that against anyone, especially Edward. Edward had stood by Kuro when he had been exposed as a thief. He had been a good friend and Kuro wasn’t about to turn on him now.

Charlie, as she often could, was able to put her feelings into words before Kuro. “That’s cool and all, but that doesn’t answer anything.”

Edward looked utterly baffled. 

“Why did Molly Weasley send us Jumpers for Christmas?” Charlie demanded, pointing a finger and looking very stern.

Edward laughed. He exploded with joyful unrestrained laughter and doubled over. It looked like a laugh that had been building up all year had finally been allowed to escape. His hair tumbled through the colours of the rainbow, his face turned wolflike, then catlike. He grew a plume of feathers that smoothed into scales and then back to flesh. 

Mary backed away uncertainly. Charlie clapped delightedly. Kuro just joined in laughing.

Edward’s laughs died into little chuckles and his features faded back to his slightly wolfish appearance. He wiped a tear from his eye and took a deep happy breath before starting to talk again. “My godfather is married to Ginerva Weasley. Her mother is like my second grandmother. Her name is Molly.” he loped over to one of the paintings and pointed. “That’s her, there.” There was a short, stout, fierce looking woman with flaming red hair. She was standing beside a balding man and was flanked by a gaggle of younger men and women with similarly blazing red hair. “She makes jumpers for all the kids in the family every Christmas. I didn’t think she’d make them for my friends. That’s just nuts.”

Charlie was scrutinizing the painting more closely. “Isn’t that George Weasley?” she asked. “I recognize him from the newspaper ads for Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Are you two related?”

“No, not really. I mean, he treats me like we are, but not by blood or anything. He lets me buy things from his shop for really cheap. That’s why I got you all stuff from there.” He started pointing around the painting excitedly “And that’s aunt Ginnie, and uncle Ron, and Charles, and Bill, and Fred and Percy.” His facial features and hair changed slightly as he talked about each person, in turn. 

“Wow,” said Charlie, very impressed. “Your family is really famous.”

His face turned a little bit mousy “I don’t want people to know, though. They'll get weird and start asking for discounts at uncle George and Ron’s store. And they’re not even my real family. It’s just cause my godfather married aunt Ginnie that I even know them.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed and she leaned in towards Edward. He literally shrank beneath her scrutinizing gaze. “Who exactly is your godfather? You’ve never told us his name. You just call him your uncle.”

Edward’s hair turned a murky blue and tumbled down over his face. He sighed deeply and conceded. “Promise you won’t get weird?” he pleaded. 

Charlie looked like she was about to say something foolish, so Kuro interrupted. “Of course we won’t get weird. You’re our friend. Right?”

Mary nodded. “I can’t imagine you telling me anything that would seem weird anymore. You’re half werewolf, the school priest is a ghost, and Charlie has a pet unicorn.”

Charlie agreed as well, in her own way. “I promise to not get any weirder than I already am.” 

Edward looked extremely uncertain, but he raised a hand and pointed to a painting. 

“No way!” said Charlie with deep admiration.

“Who’s that, then,” queried Mary, completely missing the importance of it.

Kuro remained silent. He was so mortified that he was unable to form words. Edward was pointing across the room to the huge portrait of the greatest hero of the Battle of Hogwarts. He was pointing at Harry Potter.

  
  



	19. The Distracting Draught

Kuro immediately regretted promising Edward that he wouldn’t treat him differently knowing that Potter was his Godfather. Edward thought so highly of his “Uncle at the Ministry” that Kuro was certain their friendship would not survive him finding out what Kuro thought about Potter. 

He imagined the conversation where he told Edward that Potter had attacked him, taken him captive, held him in a windowless cell, interrogated him, experimented on him, and forced him to be held in Hogwarts like a prison. He did not expect it would go well. He considered that Edward might even be one of Potter’s spies, but Edward had been too genuinely unaware of Kuro’s circumstances for that to be true. Still, he might be passing information to Potter unwittingly. 

It was a frustrating twist of fate. Edward was happy to finally be able to stop pretending around his friends, and Kuro had to start again. 

The other two seemed to have taken the new information in stride, though Mary lamented how ordinary she felt. “It’s not fair. You’re all master thieves, werewolves and unicorn herders. I’m just a muggle kid. I’m so boring,” she complained late one afternoon in the library. 

“I’ll trade you for a finished essay,” replied Edward. He gave up working on his herbology homework and let his head fall onto the desk. 

It was true that Mary was much better at homework than any of them. She had much more practice writing composition, and using her muggle pens she was also much faster than the others. Kuro had also adopted the pens and it had helped considerably, but he couldn’t keep pace yet, even with Charlie. 

The pens had not come without comment, though. Some other students snickered at Mary and Kuro resorting to muggle technology and McGonagall was incensed. “What is that?” she demanded eying Mary’s pen suspiciously one day in Transfiguration.

“It’s a pen,” explained Mary. “It’s like a quill, but doesn’t suck as much.”

“It is distasteful and I’ll not have it in my classroom.” The professor turned up her nose.

“Why not? It’s better than a quill. You don’t spill ink everywhere and they’re way easier to use.”

“Quills teach patience, discipline and precision,” explained McGonagall with an air of totalitarian authority. “And we shall not be using some fancy new muggle technology just because it is easier.”

“Fancy and new? Nobody has used a quill in a hundred years. And it’s not like you use some fancy wizard quills, they’re not even magic,” argued Mary loudly. 

“We are not giving up hundreds of years of tradition for simple convenience,” said McGonagall with such absolute finality that there was clearly no place for argument.Mary muttered something too quiet for the other students to hear in response that cost Hufflepuff five points. 

McGonagall also shot a withering glance at Kuro and the pen in his hand. He put it back into his bag and shuffled through the drawers to find where he had put his ink and quill.

Other teachers were not so opposed to the notion of pens and pencils in their classrooms. Professor Longbottom agreed that it would be easier to keep dirt out of their ink wells if they used pencils in the greenhouse. He turned up to the next class with enough for everyone. Professor Binns, their undead professor of history didn’t seem to even notice. Then again, he wouldn’t have noticed if a student had died in his classroom. Flitwick and Slughorn were both fascinated with the invention and were delighted when Mary offered to let them keep one each. She bragged to her friends that these were the first victories in her revolution. 

Problems with IOU notes continued, as did their plans to collect them. Meredith insisted that she had something almost ready for exposing the authors of the notes, and she just needed a week or two more. 

Until then, Kuro was stuck being alone much of the time. He was back to sleeping in the common room and wandering the halls by himself. It was easier, in some ways. Charlie seemed to have mostly gotten over the news about her mother, but he sometimes caught the sad distant look in her eyes across the room in class. It also meant he didn’t need to hide his feelings about Potter around Edward.

Kuro still looked forward to their secret meetings, but he was no longer the only one. Edward appeared at them early and eagerly, now, as it was the one place he felt comfortable looking like himself. 

Edward’s secrets remained between the four friends, at least for the moment. Evelyn seemed to be enjoying the power she held by keeping it to herself. She would make comments to remind Edward that she knew, and revelled in his discomfort. She, much like Professor Slughorn, considered Edward her only worthy rival in potions class, and did her best to make Edward’s life there miserable while appearing entirely innocent. She asked things like “Could you tell us more about the uses of wolfsbane, professor?” and “Is it true that you can only find moonblossom under a full moon?”  Slughorn would always indulge his favourite student, and Evelyn would look incredibly smug as Edward squirmed.

“You should just let it out yourself,” advised Mary. “Don’t let her hold it over you. Just get it over with. Do it quick, like ripping off a plaster.”

“Like doing what?” said Edward. Apparently wizards did not use adhesive bandages. “It’s fine, really. It’s only in a couple of classes that she can bother me, and that’s better than the whole school being afraid of me.” His hair changed length and colour three times in that conversation and his eyes faded through most of the colours of the rainbow. 

Charlie had become intensely jealous of Edward’s ability and sulked that her hair was boring. This received a round of disbelieving laughter, as it was currently styled like a lion’s mane. 

Kuro’s next visit with Sabine El-Asar was more uncomfortable than usual. He spent most of it trying to decide whether she was Potter in disguise, or if she really was just a nice lady that had been assigned to make sure he wasn’t going to turn into some kind of monster. He shuffled around in his chair, trying to get an angle that would see under the headscarf to check for Potter’s scar, but had no luck. 

For her part, Sabine was frustratingly friendly and failed to ask any suspicious questions at all. She asked about his studies and his friends, but was pleased to let him give vague answers. She asked cautiously about Christmas and seemed genuinely delighted that he had received more than just the book she had sent. As he left, an older Gryffindor boy walked happily into the room and started chatting like old friends to her about his Christmas Holiday.

Kuro grudgingly concluded that Sabine was probably not Potter in disguise. If she were even a spy for him, she was probably a reluctant or unwitting one. Kuro found that he was oddly disappointed. He had enjoyed being obstinate and evasive when he thought Sabine was Potter. Now he was just being rude to a nice woman. More than that, he was a little offended that Potter wasn’t even bothering to come in person to check in on him. 

He left the meeting and dragged his feet a little on the way to Potions. It was largely irrelevant for his own grade at what point he appeared. Slughorn treated Kuro as if he weren’t in the room. He received a grade of ‘poor’ on every potion he made, regardless of its efficacy. He imagined that Slughorn would gladly give him a blanket grade of ‘unacceptable,’ but he might have to actually evaluate Kuro’s work to justify failing him. 

Kuro couldn’t wait too long, though. Edward still relied on Kuro a bit for help identifying the colour of ingredients. Edward had improved considerably, though. He could reliably stir his cauldron in the correct direction and hadn’t burned anything he wasn’t supposed to since before Christmas. The real reason that Kuro and Edward kept working together was Evelyn. She gloried in Slughorn’s praise. She was also top of every class she was in and it felt good to be able to knock her down a peg in potions. 

Kuro had to admit Slughorn was a very good teacher. That is, he was very good at explaining things and making classes entertaining. He only really cared about the students with noteworthy relations, though, so they tended to get the most attention and the highest grades. Edward and Evelyn both had famous families, so they were pretty much tied for top of the class. That tie was something that clearly bothered Evelyn very much.

As Kuro stepped into Potions a little late, he was surprised to see that Slughorn wasn’t there. In his place was a portly, elderly man wearing a vibrant orange scarf. The man looked rather familiar, as though Kuro might have met him before. He thought for a bit, but couldn’t quite remember meeting anyone that had worn such a bright scarf. He worried that they might have been someone he’d borrowed from without permission.

The man at the front of class began speaking as though it were perfectly normal for him to be teaching. He didn’t introduce himself or explain Slughorn’s absence. “Today, class, we will be working on a much more subtle potion than we have to date. We shall not be growing or shrinking anything or changing its colour. No, nothing so ostentatious. Today we will be brewing a distracting draught.”

Kuro was excited to hear that. He had helped Phineas make it several times back in Knockturn Alley. He used it when he was going out, though Kuro never knew exactly what it did.

Oliver Kagen put up his hand and asked what the whole class was wondering. “Excuse me sir, but where is Professor Slughorn?”

“Whatever do you mean Oliver?” The strange man removed his scarf and the room gasped. “I’m right here.”

It was Professor Slughorn. It had been all along but the scarf he was wearing was just so distracting and so out of character for him that he had been entirely unrecognizable. 

“That is the effect you are aiming for today.” He announced proudly. “A good distracting draught will make you a stranger to your closest friends.” He walked behind a folding dressing screen as he talked.

A man walked out the other side a moment later. He must have been waiting back there since before class had started. He was old and round and wore a very silly looking straw hat with a wide floppy brim. “With it,” the man said as if continuing a sentence, “You can befuddle your own mother just by wearing something unexpected.”

The class waited for Professor Slughorn to emerge from the screen as well, but he did not. The strange man that had been hiding behind it just continued to talk. “It is the simplest potion for disguising oneself. It’s not normally on the curriculum as it can be hard to get enough of the main ingredient for two whole classes.” 

The man removed his hat and tossed it aside dramatically, revealing himself to be Professor Slughorn and eliciting a gasp from the class. “Fortunately an unnamed Hufflepuff student captured a live doxy queen before the holiday and she’s produced enough eggs for us to work with. I’ve had them fermenting for the past three weeks” 

Slughorn winked knowingly at Edward, apparently believing him to be the brave monster hunter. Edward reacted in his usual way by not lifting his eyes from his desk and deflating slightly. 

The Potion was relatively easy to make, though it smelled awful while it was boiling. Fermented doxy eggs were not a delicate perfume. They drained the eggs, powdered the elan horn, and simmered the peacock feathers in the mixture. 

Slughorn had brought an assortment of odd clothing that he kept putting on to befuddle the students. Even though Kuro knew that the man wandering the class was the same professor that had taught them all year, he appeared to be a complete stranger. His mind was convinced that Slughorn would never wear a Fruit covered hat, or a colourful sash, or fuchsia gloves and he could not convince himself to take notice of any other feature.

At the end of class, to test their potions, they all put on bits of Slughorn's strange apparel and Slughorn tried to guess who each of the students was. Those with weaker potions were easier to pick out. Charlie was one of the first ones caught. Partly because she didn’t try very hard in potions class, but mostly because she didn’t stop talking. Mary didn’t last much longer. Her potion was probably fine, but being the only black girl in class meant she was easy to pick out. 

The class dwindled down to four. Kuro had a pretty good idea who two remaining girls were. One of them was definitely Evelyn, and the only other girl not out was Veronica Singh, another Hufflepuff. Kuro was able to reason which was which, as Evelyn’s skin was far to white and her hair far too blonde to be the dark-skinned brunette standing next to him. 

Slughorn had obviously worked it out as well, but he made a show of having trouble discerning between the two. Then it was down to the two boys. Kuro was still trying to sort out who the other boy was. Brown hair, snub nose, blue eyes, vibrant pink shawl. He couldn’t place him. Probably a Ravenclaw. He looked up and down the class at the students that had been picked out already. The only person he didn’t see there was Edward. Edward must be sick that day, Kuro thought. He was often sick and he never wore pink shawls.

That wasn’t right. Edward had been there that day. Kuro had helped him with draining his doxy eggs. He looked again at the boy on his right. “You cheating little wolf.” Kuro muttered, and the boy snickered. Edward had changed his features to better disguise himself. 

“Hmmm…” said Slughorn loudly. “I’m genuinely puzzled. I’ve two remaining boys here and only one missing student. So which one of you is Edward, and which one jumped back in line after you were called out?” 

Kuro rolled his eyes and sighed quietly to himself. Slughorn had failed to recognize him only because he had forgotten that Kuro existed. 

“Well, I’ll admit that I’m amazed at your abilities, Edward. But I’ve caught you out.” He pointed at the shawl covered boy next to Kuro. “Your height gave you away. Honestly, it is all that I could pin on you.”

Edward made a bit of a show of getting tangled in the Shawl as he took it off. When he managed to get his head out from under it, he had changed his face and hair back to normal. He smiled and winked at Kuru as he walked away.

Slughorn looked up and down the collection of students and turned back to Kuro in confusion. “Alright young man take it off, reveal yourself” Slughorn ordered. 

Kuro removed the oversized purple top hat he’d been wearing and tossed it aside proudly. Slughorn made no indication of recognition.

“Did you come in from another class?” Asked slughorn.

Even without the distracting hat, Slughorn still didn’t recognize Kuro. Kuro wanted to believe that it was because his potion had been extra potent, but he knew the truth. Slughorn paid so little attention to Kuro, that he wouldn’t have recognized him on the street if his named were written across his shirt. 

“As you say sir,” Kuro agreed a little sullenly, not seeing a point in fighting it. “I’ll just get my bag and go. Sorry to cause any trouble.”

“No, none at all.” laughed Professor Slughorn. “Terrible pranksters you Gryffindors. Off you go then.”

Kuro grabbed his book bag, slid his cauldron quickly onto one of the shelves inside it while Slughorn wasn’t watching, and quietly left. He heard Slughorn congratulating Edward and Evelyn again for their excellent performance on his way out the door. 

Kuro was very discouraged. He had really started to care about school. Sometime over the past few months he had started wanting to stay, to come back next year and see his friends. It hurt that the only class he was really any good at, was also the class in which the Professor didn’t acknowledge that he existed. 

He was sulking his way down the hallway towards the common room when something occurred to him: he still had a pot full of distracting draught. Slughorn would make everyone else dump theirs. He was always very careful about it. He had told them he had to be since an incident where some Weasley boys of Wheezes fame made a whole year of Slytherins weightless for an afternoon.”

He scrounged through the drawers in his bag for something to wear and found the ribbon from one of his Christmas Present wrappings. He tied it around his head, took another sip of his potion, just to be sure, and walked proudly through the halls. 

Nobody took any notice of him. There were no suspicious glares. Nobody crossed the hall to avoid him. The looks he got were from people who seemed unsure if they should greet him or not, uncertain if they knew him personally. 

“This is going to be great,” Kuro thought.

  
  



	20. The Returning Charm

The next few days were wonderful. Kuro was nobody again. It was even better than going unnoticed on the streets, because he was being ignored as an equal. He could walk through the halls freely, smiling cordially to people who would smile back uncertainly as they tried to put a name to his face. 

He struck up a couple of conversations with other students in the halls about the weather and the upcoming quidditch game and the unfairness of homework. They all talked with him politely and happily shared their opinions, though they were a little uncertain about the moustache he had grown for the purpose using the cream Edward had given him. He felt like a normal person. He knew it was temporary. His potion wouldn’t last out the week, but he would take as much advantage of it as he could.

He decided to join the hunt for IOU notes. He wasn’t practiced at the art of deception like Mary, but he had seen professional swindlers at work enough in Knockturn Alley to have a grasp of the basics. First he needed to find his marks and establish a bond of trust. This part was easy. He found small groups of people, and as he walked past he pulled a fake IOU out of his pocket. He made as though he had just found out his candy had been stolen. 

Often the students were sympathetic and offered condolences, especially the older ones. A couple of times he was even given sweets. When he met someone that had actually been robbed, they were often eager to tell him of their own losses and commiserate. 

The next part of the plan wasn’t as easy. He needed to convince them to give him their note. Talking wasn’t his strong suit. He was much better at hiding, being quiet, and going unnoticed. He also didn’t like lying, especially as many of the students seemed quite upset at their losses. He didn’t think it right to deceive them further. Fortunately, he had some truth on his side. He could tell them that he heard that a Hufflepuff Prefect was trying to make a case with the notes and that he thought he would turn his note over to Meredith Thrump. 

A couple of times, the student he was talking to gave Kuro their note to turn in as well. A couple of others promised to pass their note to Meredith themselves. 

It was an easy con, but he left every encounter with his hands sweaty and his heart pounding from fear of being caught. He didn’t understand how Mary did it so casually. It was also hard to stand and nod along as people spoke very poorly of him. Normally people were polite enough to whisper their opinions of Kuro to each other. Since the people he was talking to didn’t recognize him, they held nothing back. Being reminded that he was a short, funny looking, big eared, no good, stupid, worthless thief got pretty hard to hear. 

By Saturday, Kuro had run out of distracting draught. It didn’t matter, though. He had collected three more IOUs and brought them proudly to the secret meeting with Edward, Charlie, and Mary. He hadn’t had an opportunity to properly brag about his week’s activities and was eager to share. He bounded into the dungeon cell they had agreed to meet in but nearly tripped over his robes when he saw a huge bear-like figure looming in the dimly lit room.

He leaped back and drew his wand. “Lumos.” he said quickly and a small shower of yellow sparks rained from the tip of his wand. It wasn’t at all what was supposed to happen, but it illuminated enough for him to recognize Meredith. “What are you doing here?” Kuro asked as he attempted to stop his wand from sputtering sparks. 

“I’ve come to collect the notes you have,” answered Meredith in her deep joyful voice. “I’ve got something sorted.”

Kuro walked into the room and shut the door. He had been the last to arrive. “What is it?” he asked eagerly.

“It’s a surprise,” said Charlie grouchily before Meredith could answer. “She won’t tell us.”

“I said you would know at dinner tonight,” Meredith defended. “It’s going to be great, I promise.” She was grinning roguishly. 

Kuro had no choice but to agree. He rotated his bag around to an angle where he could reach the drawer he had been keeping the collected notes in and pulled out the small stack. With his own additions and the ones from the others that week they had nearly thirty of them.

Meredith collected them all and stuffed them in her own satchel. On her way out the door she stopped to look suspiciously at Kuro. “Marcelle Kosman and Hannah McGregor both gave me notes, telling me that a very short Hufflepuff first-year with a moustache had told them I was collecting them. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

Kuro was about to explain eagerly about the potion and his clever method of collecting notes, but something in her voice gave him pause. “Why do you ask?” he said noncommittally. 

“Because the unsanctioned use of potions and spells, particularly mind affecting ones, are the sort of thing I would have to report. I’m a prefect, after all. I’m responsible for disciplining students. I can’t think of any with a bushy moustache, though. Can you?”

“No,” replied Kuro. “That would be a very odd thing for a student to have.”

“Well, since I can’t identify the student, I suppose there’s nothing I can do. But if I get any more reports of suspicious activity, I’d have to look into it. Understand?” She smiled kindly at Kuro, though her pointed teeth made it look a little menacing.

“Yeah, of course,” said Kuro. 

The rest of the day moved like molasses. It was too cold and snowy to go outside, they all had a mountain of homework that needed doing, and the only thing on any of their minds was Merideth’s surprise. Dinner had never seemed farther away. 

They collectively worked through the incomprehensible algorithms for Arithmancy. They were currently working on various ways to divide things by zero. This was a particularly frustrating unit as whenever they successfully solved a problem, the page they were working on would cease to exist. Professor Vector had told them this was a good sign, but it made it very difficult to refer to past problems for help.

Charlie made a small error on one problem and accidentally caused her work to multiply uncontrollably. They had to flee the cell before the mass of expanding paper trapped them inside and crushed them all.

They took this as a sign to stop working and instead explored the catacomb like dungeons beneath Hogwarts. Within minutes they were completely lost. The many winding hallways and identical stone corridors led them in circles and spat them back out even deeper in the dungeons. When they finally found their way back up to the main floor, dinner was well underway. 

They ran to the dining hall hoping desperately they hadn’t missed whatever Meredith’s surprise was. When they got there Meredith wasn’t at their table. Too hungry to worry about it, they dug in. 

Kuro shovelled steak and kidney pie into his mouth as fast as he could, not sure how long it would be until the food vanished. He nearly choked on what he was chewing, though, when he caught sight of Meredith across the room. She was talking to Bella at the Slytherin table. Bella was nodding resignedly. Then Meredith walked up to the head table and said something to professor flitwick. 

Kuro continued to watch with interest, but in his distraction failed to notice that the food had gone almost chipped a tooth on the unexpectedly empty fork.

Professor Flitwick disappeared behind the head table as he climbed off his chair and made his way to the lectern. He waited for the students to notice him and quiet down before he spoke. “Before we start dessert, I have a bit of a special announcement.” Kuro thought he saw a slightly mischievous smirk hiding behind Flitwick’s substantial beard. “One of our students has been helping me develop a new charm, and I would like to award her house thirty points for her efforts.”

There was a huge round off clapping and cheering from the Hufflepuff table as the points in their hourglass climbed out of fourth place, above Slytherin. 

Flitwick waited for the table to settle before continuing. “I’d like to do a little demonstration of what we’ve developed. It is a charm that returns mail to the sender, even if the sender is unknown. This has been quite a tricky bit of magic to work out, but we have had a unique opportunity to test it out as several notes from an unidentified source have been circulating this year. I am quite pleased with the result.”

A murmur started to pass through the crowd of students. Many eyes turned to Kuro. For the first time, he did not feel the need to shrink under the accusing gazes. Instead he scanned the room for guilty eyes.

“I’ve one here to demonstrate with.” Flitwick held up a torn piece of parchment with the letters “IOU” clearly visible. He placed it on the lectern, flourished his wand elaborately and said “reversus litteras” as he slapped the tip of his wand down on the note. 

For a while nothing happened and the room began to grow impatient, but then a small barn owl soared into the hall,snatched up the note in its talons and carried it across the room. It dropped it in front of Bella, who picked it up looking grim but unsurprised. 

The room gasped. The head boy of Slytherin stood and started shouting. “That’s rubbish.  Everyone knows who makes those notes.”

“Sit down Leonard,” Bella growled and yanked the older boy into his seat.

Professor Flitwick had apparently been expecting this. “Bella has already confessed to the forgery and has served her punishment. What was it, Bella, the cost of framing a fellow student for theft?”

“Fifty points and two nights detention.” she admitted. She looked simultaneously angry, ashamed, and somehow very smug.

Flitwick continued, his bright chipper voice starting to turn darker. “I’ve heard that there were other, similar notes, as well. Does anyone have one we could test the charm on.” There was a rustling of bags and robes and several hands went up with scraps of paper in their fingers. Some of the teachers at the head table produces a small pile of their own, and Meredith held up her stack. 

The mood in the room was changing. Eyes had turned from Kuro and were now looking around suspiciously at other students. Flitwick flicked his wand and the notes fluttered to him like leaves caught on the breeze. He began to cast the spell over and over again, “Reversus litteras. Reversus Litteras. Reversus litteras.”

Owls began pouring in and snatching up the notes. As the notes dropped into laps around the room, angry shouting and fevered denials filled the halls. Peeves, the poltergeist, came tumbling into the hall being harried by thirty owls. They chased him around the room as he screeched at them to get away. 

Kuro was startled by a sudden row erupting just down the table from him. Oliver had tackled Shaun off of the bench and was screaming bloody murder at him. His attention was torn from that by a shriek of indignant fury and denial as a note dropped into Evelyn’s lap. 

It looked like the entire school was about to hurtle into an all out brawl when the room fell suddenly, utterly, magically silent. The only remaining noise in the great hall was the gentle swishing of professor McGonagall’s robes as she walked calmly from her seat at the head table to replace Flitwick at the lectern. The fighting stopped everyone looked up, curious and frightened of what she might do. The only one who had not frozen in place was Peeves, who was still flying around the room trying to escape the peck of owls that was eagerly trying to return his notes.

McGonagall looked out over the students with an expression so severe that several visibly shuddered under it. She stood unspeaking for an agonizingly long time, her disapproval falling over the room like a crushing weight. “I am,” she began, her voice cold and level, “Exceedingly disappointed. To think that given the slightest opportunity students at this school would descend to theft, would betray the trust of one another, and would without shame allow an innocent to shoulder the blame. If I had not seen it for myself, I would have not believed it.”

Her anger was palpable and several students looked ready to run. “The very notion that students here would abandon all of the values Hogwarts espouses, courage, loyalty, wisdom, and nobility, is appalling. It is not only a failure of the individuals, but of those that allowed this to happen and to carry on for so long: their friends, their family within their houses, the school as a whole, and in this I include myself. We should all do better.” 

The magical silence that McGonagall cast had faded, but it was barely noticeable. The guilt and shame hanging over the room had stolen away their voices. Even the victims of the thefts were shamed for blaming Kuro so readily. 

“Punishment to match that paid by the instigator of this travesty will be paid for each theft and forged note. To that end, Mr. Filch shall be speaking with your heads of houses to arrange your detentions.”

Kuro heard an odd sound from the back of the hall, like a restrained chortle from someone unpracticed at laughing. He turned to see Mr. Filch looking positively gleeful with sadistic delight.

“And, of course, the house points shall be adjusted accordingly.” There was a horrified gasp as McGonagall waved her hand and the large hourglasses presenting the house point tallies drained. Eyes went wide as Slytherin, then Gryffindor, bottomed out, and the other two nearly emptied.

The room was on their feet, but before a new riot could erupt, McGonagall continued, her voice booming now. “Consider this an opportunity to prove ourselves better people in the second half of the year. To encourage stronger relationships, and repair heal some of the damage done by the choices made by several of you, teachers are being encouraged to give points for acts of cooperation, helpfulness and kindness, rather than individual achievement.”

This did not calm the turmoil in the student body, particularly in Slytherin and Ravenclaw who both rate personal success very highly. 

“I should also note,” there was a sharpness to her voice that cut down the rumbles of rebellion, “That your punishments matched those given to someone with the strength of character to admit to their wrongdoing and make efforts to atone to their victim. I have faith that the rest of you will demonstrate similar integrity. If I find over the coming days that this is not the case and my faith has been misplaced, I will have no choice but to meet with you individually.”

The threat implied in McGonagall’s statement was so weighty that several students found it difficult to remain standing, and sat down hard onto their benches. 

“As a final note,” McGonagall’s voice was particularly loud and hash now. “all of this applies to spirits, as well.”

Peeves let out a terrified shriek and flew from the room so fast the owls could not keep pace. They streamed after him out of the hall. 

Professor McGonagall left the lectern and returned to her seat as dessert arrived. Many angry glares were shared over the pies and tarts that now filled the tables. A few people fled the hall, running to return their stolen goods before McGonagall or their victims could meet out any more serious retribution. Only two people were looking at Kuro with any particular interest. 

The first was Evelyn. She had her forged IOU crushed into a ball in her hand and her perfect white skin had turned a violent shade of red. It was a problem of her own making, but she looked at Kuro with such enmity, such unbridled animosity that Kuro couldn’t help but smile. He quietly claimed a victory over the pompous rich kid and turned to eat a celebratory tart. 

The other person looking at Kuro was someone he knew of, but had never spoken to. It was Theodore Park, the head boy of Hufflepuff. He strode down the aisle between tables towards Kuro smiling with pride. He was a seventh-year student that towered over Kuro. He took Kuro’s hand and shook it in a congratulatory manner. “You have accomplished something that hasn’t happened in all my years at Hogwarts,” he stated as though presenting an award. 

Kuro couldn’t imagine what Theodore was talking about. He hadn’t done anything. That was the whole point, really. He looked up at the tall boy blankly.

“Hufflepuff is...” Theodore paused dramatically “in first place for the House Cup.”

Kuro looked up at the nearly empty hourglasses. Gryffindor and Slytherin were both tied at zero and were likely grateful that they couldn’t go below that. Ravenclaw had managed to retain twenty-four and Hufflepuff was well out in front with fifty-one points. 


	21. Lunaseed

Kuro’s life improved considerably after the true authors of the IOU notes had been revealed. He still wasn’t very popular and there were still those that were distrustful of him, but people were taking much less notice of him, which was a far more comfortable state. There were also a few unexpected apologies. The Ravenclaw girl that had chased him across the school for stealing her diary was deeply sorry, and a few thieves said sorry as well. 

One of the many benefits of having his named cleared was sleeping in his own bed. He had been welcomed back to the dorm by Oliver and Shaun who were both very apologetic. The dorm was not full, however, as Shaun Cassidy had taken Kuro’s place sleeping in the common room as penance for forging a note. His note, as it turned out, had been a prank and he hadn’t stolen anything. 

Oliver said the thumping he had given Shaun in the great hall was more than enough to satisfy him. Shaun, to his credit, said that it wasn’t Oliver’s forgiveness that he needed. Kuro didn’t see the need for kicking him out of the room, but Shaun said he didn’t feel right without serving some kind of sentence. 

The best part of the whole business being done was being with his friends again. They no longer had to pretend at being enemies. They could sit close together in class, though Charlie and Kuro were often separated for talking, anyway. They could share meals, play at breaks, and work on homework together in the common room. Kuro was, for the first time in his life, happy.

He even had some hope for the future. He was almost passing all of his classes. With Ms. Crawley’s help, he was almost caught up in charms and he was getting pretty good at Defense Against the Dark Arts. Transfiguration was the only class where he still couldn’t cast any spells properly. Even with McGonagall’s attitude being somewhat improved towards Kuro, she was still stern and uncompromising and Kuro expected that he was going to fail the class. 

Sabine El-Asar’s visit in February brought good news as well. He would have a home for the summer. There was space at the orphanage where Meredith and Bella lived. He was so excited at that news that he completely forgot to feel like a prisoner in the school. He was starting to feel like he had a home and a family at Hogwarts. He no longer dreamed of escape and his only thoughts of his master were of loathing instead of loyalty. 

He dashed to Potions class to share the good news to Charlie and the others. Class was just getting underway when he skidded into the room, having run at irresponsible speeds to get there. He slid to a stop beside Evelyn, who glared at him with unrestrained hatred.

Evelyn had been caught as a note writer, but she had suffered little for it. She was too clever and popular to lose any followers over it. The girl she had stolen a notebook from was a spotty and awkward Slytherin named Genevieve Frunklestein that was frequently the butt of jokes from Evelyn’s troupe. Evelyn had somehow come out ahead and seemed more popular than ever. 

She had not taken the loss of points or the detention well, though. She had vehemently claimed that the punishments were draconian and that her parents worked for the ministry and they would not stand for it. She had, of course, never actually told them about it as that would admit some fault. Filch had made her clean the haunted girl’s lavatory on the first floor for her detentions. Kuro expected it was the first time she’d cleaned anything, or been punished for that matter. 

Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to take any responsibility for it and so she blamed Kuro. She had moved from being dismissive and disparaging to actively despising him. This shouldn’t have made Kuro happy, he knew. It was unwise to make enemies. If you were to have enemies, it is far better if they do not know it. These were lessons taught to Kuro by Phineas and even as Kuro had come to loathe his old master, he saw wisdom in those words. Regardless, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction that she now hated him as much as he hated her.

He had found that the best way to infuriate her was to politely ignore her. She couldn’t stand anyone not caring what she thought. Kuro smiled politely at Evelyn and hurried back to take his seat beside Edward. 

Potions class had also improved in some small measure. Kuro was back to getting “satisfactory” grades on his work. Also, Edward had been awarded several points for helping Kuro with his potions. Edward tried to argue that it was the other way around, but Slughorn wouldn’t hear of it and gave extra points for humility. This, too, angered Evelyn. Ironically, it was only because she demanded so much of Slughorn’s attention that he had never noticed what was really going on.

They were to be making a blooming brew that day, which would cause flowers to grow instantly when poured on seeds. Slughorn was handing out flower pots to everyone. “Now each of these pots contains a different kind of flower,” Explained Slughorn in his normal bubbly and boisterous tone. “Professor Longbottom was kind enough to prepare them for us. At the end of class, if your potion is successful, you should all get a different surprise when your flower blooms.” He clapped his hands once to indicate it was time to get going. “Instructions are on the board. Just throw up your hand if you need any assistance. Off you go.”

As they went about milking the honeydew from giant aphids and simmering it in dragon blood, Kuro noticed that Evelyn was acting very strangely. She was unusually quiet, neither bragging to her followers, nor asking Slughorn about werewolf related facts. She kept glancing mischievously at Kuro, though. It was very fishy. 

Despite her suspicious behavior, the class passed without incident. As the class drew to a close, Slughorn called them all to attention again. “Alright, it looks like nearly all of you have a good, hearty blooming brew, but we won't know unless we test it. All together now, ladle out a good dollop into your flower pots.”

Everyone poured a spoonful of the thick brown ooze into their pots and waited for something to happen. Soon several small green sprouts started to poke through the surface. Before any flowers could bloom, Evelyn ruined the suspense by putting up her hand. Kuro waited for the inevitable jab at Edward.

“When I was fetching the pots from the greenhouse for you, professor, I saw a container labelled lunaseed. What is that?” She asked sweetly, feigning curiosity.

Slughorn, never missing a chance to show off his expertise explained. “Lunaseed is used to grow lunablooms. Lunablooms are very interesting flowers. They glow brightly, like the moon the moment they blossom, but fade to a dull grey within seconds.” He illustrated the effect with animated gestures. “The light they produce is so much like the light of the full moon that it can induce a temporary transformation of a werewolf, and their nectar is used in wolfsbane potion, a curative tonic for those afflicted with lycanthropy.” 

Kuro looked to Edward. He wasn’t really paying attention. Evelyn’s attacks on him had become so routine as to be dull. 

Evelyn continued her assault. She shot a devious look at him and Edward before she started to speak again. “Oh, are they dangerous at all? I think the container had spilled onto our flower pots,” she said in her sweetest, most innocent.

Just as she said it the first flower bloomed, filling the class with cool white light. Kuro looked around at the pots. Dozens of sprouts were growing quickly. Blooms started bursting open all over. He looked to Edward. His face was twisted in pain and concentration. He was gripping the table, white knuckled, as if trying to use it to hold himself in place. His hair was falling in and out of his perfect part. His lip curled fiercely and Kuro could see that his canine teeth were starting to extend. 

Evelyn faked a scream and pointed at Edward in feigned horror. The rest of the class turned to watch. Kuro could hear the scraping of stools and collected footsteps as those closeby moved away. The clammer broke Edwards concentration and his eyes snapped up to meet Evelyn’s gloating gaze. Anger grew in his eyes and he stopped fighting it. He let the transformation happen and in seconds there was a large, snarling wolf sitting next to Kuro. Edward growled fiercely and bolted forward across the desks toward Evelyn. 

Kuro grabbed his tail as Edward flew forward. He was able to slow Edward, but the wolf was strong and Kuro wasn’t large enough to hold him back. Edward was bearing down quickly on Evelyn snapping and growling. She had frozen in place. Her prank had worked but she had not been prepared to be attacked. Kuro, still being dragged behind Edward, heard himself yelling for Evelyn to run. Edward surged forward, pulling himself free of Kuro’s grip. 

Edward was inches from Evelyn and looked to be lunging for her throat. Kuro heard Slughorn casting a spell. Before either had a chance to connect, though, Charlie flew in from the side and tackled Edward out of the air. She and him tumbled over each other in a tangle of limbs and fur. Slughorn’s spell missed the mark and the blazing red bolt struck Evelyn. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped limply to the floor. Slughorn squeaked like a terrified mouse at what he’d done.

Kuro found his feet and ran to help Charlie. She didn’t seem to need help though. She had wrestled Edward onto his back and had him pinned. He thrashed and bit at the air but he couldn’t get any purchase. “It’s okay,” Charlie said calmly. “I’ve got him. No worse than a grumpy manticore cub.”

Kuro heard Slughorn start to incant. He jumped in the way, blocking the tangle of Edward and Charlie from whatever Slughorn was going to cast. “Get out of the way boy!” Slughorn shouted. “It’s not safe.”

Kuro didn’t move. He put his arms out to the side and tried to block more. He could hear Charlie behind him trying to soothe Edward. “You’re fine. That’s right, I’ve got you. You’re okay,” she kept repeating over and over and Edward’s growls slowly faded into whimpers. 

“Move!” pleaded Slughorn, trying to find a gap around which to fire. He found none, mostly because Mary had added herself to the blockade. “Miss Akinwande please get out of the way. This is very dangerous.”

Kuro risked a peek over his shoulder. Charlie was loosening her grip and letting Edward get his paws under him, though she kept a hand wrapped around his muzzle and was clearly prepared to bring him to the ground again should the need arise. It didn’t look like she would need to, though. Edward was sitting on his haunches, looking downcast and whining slightly. 

“Get. Out. Of. The. Way,” snarled Slughorn, his usual jovial attitude completely gone. He stopped trying to point the wand around Kuro and instead levelled it at him. “You don’t understand the danger you’re in.”

Kuro stood firm and moved to back closer to Edward to better block the way. To his complete shock, he bumped into someone. Shaun Cassidy had also joined the blockade, and he saw Oliver Kagen moving to do the same. Veronica Singh joined them a little uncertainly, followed by Jennifer Tanaka and Malorie Wood, the other Hufflepuff girls. 

Kuro stared defiantly at Slughorn and the frightened collection of Ravenclaws. The professor considered carefully, not lowering his wand, but not moving to cast either. Minutes passed as the lunablooms burst with bright white light. Finally the last one faded to grey, and the sullen whimpers of the wolf shifted to the sniffles of a sad boy. 

Charlie let Edward go and he stood, wiping the tears from his eyes. Slughorn still didn’t lower his wand. “How are you feeling Edward?” he asked in a tone that was both wary and warm. 

“I’m fine,” replied Edward very sulkily. He had made no effort to change his hair or hide his fangs, and while his eyes were downcast, they did not stare so fixedly at the ground as normal.

“Would you accompany me to see Madam Pomfrey just to be sure?” asked Slughorn. 

“Yeah, alright.” Edward shouldered his way through his housemates. Kuro still tried to block him from Slughorn, not trusting the teacher. “It’s okay Kuro,” muttered Edward. “I’ll be fine.”

He slouched out of the room in front of Slughorn, who had lowered his wand but had not sheathed it. Slughorn had regained some of his bubbly and pompous persona, but still seemed deeply apprehensive of Edward. “Class is dismissed,” he announced on his way out of the dungeon. 

Everyone seemed a little uncertain, but they slowly fetched their materials and books and shuffled quietly out of the classroom. Everyone, except Kuro, that is. 

He had not forgotten about Evelyn. She still lay unconscious on the floor at the edge of the room where Slughorn had accidentally hit her with a spell. Kuro looked down at her helpless form and fought the strong urge to kick her. He knew that she should probably go to Madam Pomfrey as well. He shouldn’t just leave her a heap on the floor as much as he wanted to. 

It took some effort, but he managed to shove her into his book bag. He trudged up the many flights of stairs to the hospital wing. He considered how pleasing it would be to just dump her out at the top of a flight and watch her tumble down, but he resisted the urge.

He deposited her as unceremoniously as he dared on the floor outside the large oak doors to the infirmary. He felt it best not to have to explain why he was in the company of an unconscious Ravenclaw girl or how he got her up there, so he knocked on the infirmary door and ran when he heard feet approaching. Not before leaving a little something for Evelyn, though. 

Kuro’s altruism had already been stretched to the limit and the idea that Evelyn probably wouldn’t suffer at all for her actions seemed extremely unjust. Also, Kuro still had a bit of the jar of moustache cream that Edward had given him for Christmas. He smeared on a healthy dollop, thumped on the door, and made himself scarce.

Edward didn’t return for any classes that day, nor did he appear for dinner. The hall was buzzing with the news of a werewolf in the castle, though. There were stories of a bloody attack and rumours of a death. Kuro did his best to quell the rumors, but his small voice had little impact on the chattering horde.

When they returned to their dorm that night, Edward’s clothes were gone and his trunk was missing. Kuro was mortified. He worried that Edward had been expelled or worse. He rummaged through the remains of Edward’s things and found a dirty sock that the elves hadn’t cleaned up yet. Mustering some optimism, he cast the returning charm on it and let it lead him to his friend. 

He was still not very good at that charm. The sock pushed itself reluctantly along the floor like an inchworm. It took minutes to even get out to the common room following it. When he got there, it did not lead him to the door like he had expected. Instead it brought him to a familiar dark corner of the common room, the one behind a large sofa where Kuro had slept for much of the year. There, curled into a corner and wrapped in his his cloak so as to be almost invisible, was Edward.

“Are you alright?” asked Kuro as he rushed over to his friend. “Did Slughorn hurt you?”

Edward had his face buried and did not answer right away. Slowly he lifted his head to look at Kuro. His hair was hanging down over his face in dark green tangles like he was wearing a wig of seaweed. His eyes, bloodshot from crying, peeked out between the tangled mat. “I’m fine, Kuro,” he said unconvincingly.

“What are you doing here?” asked Kuro. “Are they kicking you out of school?”

“No,” mumbled Edward. “I’m not in trouble or anything. I just didn’t think the others would want to share a room with a werewolf.”

Kuro imagined that Edward might be right about that. He remembered how they had treated him when they thought he might steal from them. Shaun and Oliver would probably be even less welcoming of someone that might eat them in the night. Kuro wasn’t going to let his friend sleep alone, though. “Wait here.” 

He stomped into their dorm room and started pulling sheets and pillows off his and Edward’s bed. Oliver and Shaun were there, looking worried. “Do you know what’s happened to Edward?” Shaun asked fearfully.

“He’s sleeping in the common room.” replied Kuro giving each boy an accusing glare. “He thinks you’re afraid of him. I’m going to join him.”

Kuro did his best to storm defiantly out of the room and slam the door, but it is very difficult when carrying a large pile of bedding. It ended up being more of a surly shuffle and an awkward thump as the door got caught on a blanket and failed to latch, but he hoped they got the impression anyway.

Kuro delivered the bedding to Edward and set himself up beside him. “Thanks,” said Edward, still sulking. 

“Not at all,” said Kuro. “Those guys are jerks.”

Edward was quiet for a while as he arranged his blankets and fluffed his pillow. Slowly Edward’s hair returned to its normal sandy blond colour and shortened enough to let his face show through. He seemed to be making no effort to hide his slightly wolfish appearance. Eventually, he broke his silence. Speaking quietly, so the others in the common room wouldn’t hear, he asked “Can you tell me what happened in class after I changed?”

“Don’t you remember?” asked Kuro in astonishment.

Edward looked ashamed. “Only sort of. Things are a bit fuzzy when I’m a wolf. I remember how everything smelled and the sounds, but words are harder to understand and what things look like doesn’t seem to matter. It’s like I can hear your voice and I know it’s you, but I don’t understand what you’re saying except for bits and pieces.”

Kuro explained as best he could about the attack and Charlie tackling him and Slughorn blasting Evelyn and the whole class standing in the way so Slughorn couldn’t attack again. 

“Did they really do that?” asked Edward, getting a little teary eyed again. 

“Yeah, they did.” replied Kuro a little bitterly. There was something he hadn’t been able to express, but had been clawing away at the back of his mind since it had happened. “I guess they like you better than me. Nobody would have stuck up for me like that.”

Edward opened his mouth to argue but he didn’t get the chance. They were both startled by a voice from above them. “It’s not like that,” said Oliver defensively. He was poking his head over the top of the sofa and looking in on their hiding place. “Look, we messed up once, we didn’t want to do it again. I just kept seeing McGonagall’s angry face in my head yelling at us that we should do better, then all of a sudden I was standing there with you.”

“Really?” Edward and Kuro said together, a little unbelieving.

“Yeah,” replied Oliver resolutely. “Now make some space.” He threw his pillow and blanket over the back of the sofa and started to climb back to join them. He was followed by another hail of pillows and blankets and Shaun Cassidy clambered over.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Kuro.

“Same as Oliver,” said Shaun indignantly. “Besides, I’m still sleeping down here this week, remember?”

“Aren’t you afraid of me?” asked Edward, pushing himself back into the corner away from the boys.

“I mean, a bit,” admitted Shaun as he laid out his bedding. “But you’ve been in our room all year and haven’t killed us yet. I’m not so worried.”

It was the first time since the start of the year that the four boys had really spent time together. They started to share their adventures of the year so far. Oliver and Shaun’s hadn’t landed them in the infirmary quite as often as Kuro’s but they had been in a bit of a brawl with some Slytherins and won an exploding snap tournament. Oliver had also singed off his own eyebrows in Potions class and Shaun had made a turnip explode all over himself when he was trying to get fruit to dance.

They weren’t able to talk for long before being overheard. Charlie’s head with hedgehog-like hair appeared over the back of the sofa grinning. The boys barely got out half of an explanation before she loudly declared “Sleepover!” and ran to get her things.

She reappeared soon after, dragging her bedding and a slightly reluctant Mary. Their growing pile of bedding soon attracted Meredith’s attention, who resigned herself to keeping an eye on the impromptu slumber party and claimed the sofa for herself.

Word spread and the party grew. Soon half of Hufflepuff was camped out in the common room in solidarity. The story of the day’s events were retold a dozen times, usually by Charlie, getting more elaborate every time. The older students applauded the first-year’s bravery at standing up to Slughorn and waved off Edward’s worries about being a werewolf. It came out that he was a metamorphmagus and was forced to spend the next five minutes changing his hair colour, but he was so embarrassed by the attention that he was having trouble having it turn any shade except fuscia.

It turned out that Edward wasn’t the only oddity in the room. He was comforted by Meredith who admitted to her ogre heritage. A fairly short sixth year with unusually long fingers explained that his grandfather had been a Goblin, and a third year girl claimed that she was one sixty-fourth djinn but nobody ever believed her. 

The room was boisterous and joyful and every square inch of space was covered with blankets and pillows and loudly talking students. It was starting to get late when the din was interrupted by a loud piercing whistle. The room fell silent. Madam Hooch was standing in the doorway looking thoroughly flummoxed. “What in the world is going on here?” she demanded in a tone that was simultaneously furious and amused.

“Slumber party!” shouted Charlie cheerfully.

“Charlotte Cook. Would you please get off of that table,” said Madam Hooch. “Where are your prefects?” 

Several hands went up around the room with declarations of “Here ma’am.” Madam Hooch seemed as though she hadn’t expected them to be partaking in the festivities.

“Well then,” she said, trying to collect herself. “I suppose it is good that you are all here, I have something to tell you. There was an incident today...”

“We already know,” interrupted a Neil Barnholden, a sixth year prefect camped out under one of the tables.

“You do?” stammered Madam Hooch. “Well of course news travels quickly here. However, there has been a lot of misinformation going around and I think it is best that you hear it first hand.”

“He already told us,” said a girl who was half-buried in a pile of cushions.

“He did?” Madam Hooch was having a lot of trouble making the serious announcement that she had planned. “Well I just want you to know that you aren’t in any danger and we have been taking precautions all year to…”

“Don’t worry about it Professor,” said Theodore Park. “Edward’s alright. Right everyone.”

There was a rousing cheer of agreement from the crowd. 

“Well, that’s… very good.” Madam Hooch still looked a bit concerned. “Where is Edward Lupin?”

Edward slowly stuck up his hand and quietly said, “Here ma’am.” He was looking very mousy and abashed at the show of support.

“Good. You look well… And this mess?” Hooch queried, gesturing around the room. 

“Just making him feel welcome,” replied Theodore. 

Madam Hooch’s bottom lip quavered as though she was having feelings she didn’t quite know how to process. “Very well. Just be sure to get some sleep. You still have classes tomorrow. Prefects, I’ll leave this in your hands. Goodnight everyone.”

It felt to Kuro like his first real night at Hogwarts. It didn’t feel like a prison, or like everyone was spying on him. The whole house was together and happy. The older students shared stories with their juniors about past adventures. Carlie’s magic brush was passed around the room and half the students ended up with mad hairstyles. Seniors showed off their trickiest spells, turning pillows into pigs and candlesticks into cacti. A few of them got together and enchanted the hardwood floor to be soft and yielding like a mattress. 

Slowly the chatter in the common room died down and everyone started to drift off to sleep much later than they should. Kuro was the last set of eyes in the room to shut. He was too happy to sleep and didn’t want the return of classes the next day to spoil his mood. When sleep finally took him he had, for the first time in his memory, pleasant dreams.


	22. The Man in the Blue Hat

Evelyn did not appear in class the next day, or the next. Rumor was that she had been knocked into some potions by Slughorn’s spell and was covered in fur. Kuro knew the truth, but kept it to himself. He smiled inwardly, remembering the large moustache and goatee that painted on her face before leaving her at the infirmary. It was an image that would keep him grinning in the darkest times.

Edward had become almost a different person. No longer trying to hide who he was, he smiled openly, and talked almost as much as Charlie, as if making up for lost time. Kuro and Mary had become allies in silence around the pair, sharing knowing looks with each other as Charlie and Edward talked over each other. He had also become vastly better at magic since he no longer needed to concentrate on staying the same shape. 

Not everyone had been as comfortable with Edward as the Hufflepuffs. Some were fearful of his werewolfism, and would cross the hallway or classroom to avoid him. Others, Evelyn included, made cruel remarks, jeers and implied threats. Edward pretended that it didn’t bother him, but he avoided going anywhere without the protection of a couple of friends. 

A side effect of not trying to stay the same shape meant that he rarely did. He would change based on his mood and often started to look like the people he was listening to if they talked for too long. That meant he frequently took on the appearance of Charlie or his professors. An hour listening to Professor Vector in talk about geometric formulae one day had him looking like a cubist rendition of a middle-aged greek woman. 

Spring had arrived and the blooming flowers and occasional warm day seemed to push away the troubles of winter. Kuro’s master, Charlie’s mother, Edward’s godfather, none of them seemed to matter as much when lying on the grass in the sun. 

With green leaves came the last day of flying class. It ended before the other classes to give more time for study. Kuro hadn’t really mastered the broom, but he could get it to go where he pointed it pretty reliably. Edward and Charlie were easily among the best in their class, and even Mary had learned to trust the “airborne accidents waiting to happen,” as she called them.

Madam Hooch had warned them that their final test would be an obstacle course. He dreaded participating as he knew Evelyn would be insufferably boastful of her skill and her fancy broom. It was certainly faster than the school brooms, but it seemed a bit slow to turn, like Mr. Besom had said. A part of him dreamed that she wouldn’t be able to manage the obstacle course and she would crash.

He didn’t get an opportunity to find out, though. As they were heading out to the field, Sabine intercepted Kuro. He was surprised to see her. She didn’t normally come until closer to the end of the month. 

“I’m very sorry,” she said politely to the four of them. “Could I borrow Kuro from you. I have some exciting news for him.”

She led him back up to the castle and waited until well out of earshot of other students before starting to explain. “It looks as though you won’t have to go to the orphanage after all,” she said warmly.

Kuro couldn’t understand why this was good news. “But I want to go to the orphanage. Meredith says it’s nice there,” he pleaded. 

“Oh, that is sweet,” Sabine said consolingly. “I’m sure that you could visit if you want, but we’ve found a better place. We’ve found your family.”

Kuro was so surprised that he tripped over his feet nearly fell flat on his face. He didn’t have any family. Phineas had been very clear about that. He was an experiment. Phineas had created him. Had he lied? Was Sabine mistaken? Did Kuro actually have a real family?

Sabine led Kuro to the room where they normally met. She opened the door and gave Kuro a little nudge to walk inside. There was a man with a in the chair where Sabine normally sat. He was well dressed in crisp, grey business robes and wore a bright blue bowler hat. He sat with the posture of a very proud man, straight backed, one leg crossed casually over the other exposing a well polished shoe. His face was hard to read. He was clean shaven and looked a little bit weathered. His lips were spread in a broad warm smile, but his eyes remained distant and judgemental. The man seemed strangely familiar, but Kuro couldn’t recall knowing anyone, or stealing from anyone that wore such a bright blue hat. 

“This is Mr. Jonathan Smith,” said Sabine. “Your uncle.”

The man stood up. “Thank you Ms. El-Asar.” His smile grew even wider as he surveyed Kuro. “We had all thought you lost in the war with your parents, Albert. I’ve not seen you since you were a babe in arms. That’s your name,: Albert. I’m told they’ve been calling you Kuro.”

The voice was familiar. Kuro knew it, he just couldn’t place it. He’d heard it before but it was like a dream he’d forgotten. “Come here and let me look at you,” the man said warmly.

Kuro felt his legs moving beneath him automatically, the very thought of refusing to do what he was told filled him with the urge to punish himself violently. He may not be able to recognize the voice, but he knew the feeling. It was Phineas. It could only be Phineas. He must be using a distracting draught and that ridiculous blue bowler to disguise himself. 

Kuro looked closer at the man. He wasn’t sure he would have recognized him even without magic. He looked healthy, strong, and collected. He smelled clean and his clothes were neatly pressed. He moved with confidence and precision. The only thing that was really the same as the Phineas that Kuro knew was the eyes. They were still cold, calculating, and filled with loathing. “How...” Kuro started to say, but he was cut off.

“Don’t say another word,” said Phineas. “We’ll have plenty of time for questions later.”

Kuro’s voice evaporated and his jaw clamped shut. 

Phineas seemed very pleased with that reaction. “Go and get your things,” he said loudly. Then he leaned in closer and said “And any of my things you happen to have. Do you understand.”

Kuro nodded. Kuro’s body walked itself to the dorm and started throwing his few possessions and Graeae into his book bag. The few students lounging in the common room took no notice of him as he entered and left without a word. 

It was horribly unfair, Kuro thought. He had finally felt at home, felt what freedom was like. Before he had come to Hogwarts, he’d never known what he was missing. Going back to Phineas would be a hundred times worse, now. He wished that someone would notice him, that he’d run into a teacher, that they would see something was wrong, but the halls were empty. Classes were in session. He walked back into the meeting room and looked helplessly at Sabine, but she seemed oblivious. She smiled at him and patted his head.

“I’ll be taking him to meet the rest of the family now,” Said Phineas. “No need to worry. Follow me Kuro.” He led Kuro out of the meeting room, down the stairs, and out of the main doors of Hogwarts towards the main gates.

“I’ve spent the last three months trying to find you boy.” Phineas complained once they were out of earshot of anyone. “I expected you dead, and instead I find they’ve made you into a wizard.” Phineas seemed disgusted by the idea. “Where are my things? My notebook and my shell, do you have them? Tell me. Where are they.”

Kuro’s jaw finally unclenched. “No, master,” he said very sullenly, “I hid them in Knockturn.”

“They were already hidden.” Phineas snapped, and raised his hand as though to hit Kuro. 

“I feared they would be found if the aurors came back.” Kuro shrunk back waiting for the pain. 

Phineas looked around the grounds and lowered his hand. He was unwilling to risk being seen delivering a beating on the grounds though his anger was still palpable. “They did return. They found my wand and used it to condemn me. It bore the history of the things that it had done. Why didn’t you hide that?” he snapped viciously.

“You ordered me never to touch your wand,” Kuro sniveled. 

Phineas’ expression softened to one of interest rather than rage. “Following my orders even my absence? Better than I expected. Much better.” He was speaking to himself more than Kuro.

As they passed through the huge iron gates flanked by statues of winged boars that marked the edge of the grounds, they heard someone calling to them. Phineas whipped around, hand reaching for his wand. Kuro turned, fearful of who it might be.

Charlie was running as fast as she could down the drive after them. “Wait!” she yelled. “You can’t go.”

“Run away,” thought Kuro as loudly as he could. “Don’t come. He’ll kill you.”

Phineas did not reach for his wand, though. He relaxed and returned to his smiling false affectation. “Tell me, is that a friend of your’s Kuro?” he said pleasantly.

“Yes,” said Kuro, unable to resist his master’s order.

“I suppose they’ve given you a wand and taught you to use it, here? Haven’t they,” he patted Kuro on the shoulder paternally as Charlie ran closer. She was nearly at the gates. Kuro could see Mary and Edward trailing far behind, trying to keep up.

Charlie staggered to a stop just outside the gates, a few yards from Kuro and Phineas. “They said,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “They said you were leaving.” She gulped down some air. “Leaving without saying goodbye. Not allowed.”

Why had somebody told her? Kuro’s heart was pounding in his chest. Maybe Phineas would let her go. Maybe he would want to keep himself secret. 

Phineas crouched down and whispered darkly to Kuro, “Show me what they’ve taught you. Show me that you’re loyal to me. Get rid of her.”

Kuro looked into Phineas’ eyes. There was no question what Phineas meant, but he made it absolutely clear anyway. “You know the spell. You’ve seen it cast. You never forget it once you’ve seen it. Say the words.”

Kuro drew his wand with a shaky hand and raised it. “I’m sorry,” he said to Charlie, who was completely bewildered by Kuro’s actions. “Avada Kedavra!” he shouted as he swept the wand point toward Charlie. 

A blazing green bolt shot out and hit her square in the chest. She dropped to the ground and lay motionless. A hundred yards away, Edward and Mary staggered to a halt and stared in disbelief at Kuro. He pointed his wand at them and they began running back toward the castle.

Kuro walked over to her unmoving body and checked her pulse. 

“Your spell was a little weak, but not terrible,” commented Phineas, unmoved by the murder he had just witnessed. “Perhaps you have more promise than I believed. How is she?” 

“About as you would expect,” answered Kuro stoically. 

“Well done. You never forget your first.” Phineas grinned cruelly. “Come, we must be off before the alarm is raised. Accio broom.” He waved his wand and a broom burst from the bushes and into his empty hand. “Get on.”

Kuro climbed onto the broom and Phineas mounted behind him. Phineas gave a kick and they shot off and up into the low hazy clouds. Kuro looked back at the rapidly shrinking school, possibly for the last time. Then they were lost in the clouds.


	23. The Return to Knockturn Alley

They flew through the clouds for what seemed like hours. Kuro was soaked and shivering by the time they set down on the outskirts of Glasgow. Phineas had kept himself magically warm and dry, but made no effort to do the same for Kuro.

They walked together into an abandoned theatre, out through the backstage door, and into the familiar dingy cobblestone street of Knockturn Alley. They had remained silent for the journey but now they no longer had wind rushing loudly in their ears, Kuro couldn’t help but ask some burning questions. “Master,” he said as submissively as possible, “Where have you been? I heard that you were taken to Azkaban.”

“Oh I was,” replied Phineas darkly.

“But how did you escape?”

“The same way I got you at Hogwarts,” he gloated, “Through the front door.”

“You were released?” exclaimed Kuro in horrified amazement.

“Oh, no,” laughed Phineas. “Not exactly.” He leaned in close and whispered to Kuro. “Don’t tell anyone, but the inmates are running the asylum.”

Kuro wasn’t sure what that meant, but Phineas refused to elaborate. “Now be quiet and fetch me my things, boy,” he ordered. 

Kuro led him down the cobbled street. Dark eyes stared out at them from darker shadows as they passed. Phineas sneered at the filth in the streets and the uncouth people. He seemed to have become too good for such things during his time away. 

Kuro found the drainpipe in which he had stowed the items and climbed in. He squeezed inside and started to worm his way along. He was surprised to find that it was a tighter fit than it had been, and he had grown some over the year at Hogwarts. He reached the fork in pipes and took the third, unseen path, slid down the slimy incline and found the collection just as he had left them hanging from a valve in Phineas’ old leather satchel. He checked the contents and all seemed to be there, the journal, the equipment, and the box with the whispering seashell. 

He hauled himself and both of his bags back out of the hole and emerged filthy and panting. He didn’t even have a chance to brush himself off before Phineas had grabbed his satchel and started rooting through it. He pulled the notebook out and leafed through it quickly, then pulled out the seashell and put it to his ear.

While Phineas was distracted with inspecting his lost belongings, Kuro noticed a galeon rolling along the ground towards them, followed by a cat with odd square markings around its eyes. 

The cat paused as the gold coin rolled up to Kuro and leaped into his hand. “What was that?” demanded Phineas, the glint of flickering gold catching his attention. 

“I found a galeon,” said Kuro slyly. 

In that moment, a pop like a bottle being uncorked and a crack like a whip split the oppressive quiet of Knockturn Alley. Kuro’s vision was suddenly blocked by the appearance of Professor Crawley who was now standing between him and Phineas, wand at the ready. Across the square the cat had ceased being a cat and had transformed into Professor McGonagall who drew her wand as well. 

High above them Kuro heard a familiar voice laugh victoriously. He looked up to see Charlie on a broom with Sabine. A wand was balanced on her finger and pointing directly at Kuro.

“How?” demanded Phineas, furious when he saw Charlie alive and well. 

Crawly answered. “Our young Kuro here has a talent for disguising spells. He merely paralyzed Charlotte.”

“Why you little…” Phineas started to say, but Crawley waved her wand threateningly. 

“Manners please.” she said condescendingly. “There are children present.” 

“How did you find me so quickly?” growled Phineas. 

This time McGonagall answered. “Kuro has slightly sticky fingers,” she said. “He seems to have stolen something precious from Charlotte when he went to check on her wellbeing.”

Kuro pulled Charlie’s locket out of his pocket and let it dangle on its chain. “I bought it, actually. I’m not allowed to steal.” He displayed the Galeon as well before sliding it back into his robes. “Just following your orders,” he added.

Crawley reclaimed the conversation. “We were able to track you with them. Now would you care to tell us who you are and why you have kidnapped one of our students?”

“Why of course,” Phineas’ fury was and had been replaced with a calm and calculated anger. Slowly he removed his bright blue bowler hat and let it fall to the ground. 

“Hearn!” exclaimed Professor Crawley in shock and fury. “You monster, I should kill you where you stand.”

“Manners Beatrice,” he said, smiling maliciously. “There are children present.”

Professor Crawley looked ready to act on her threat. “You had me under the Imperius curse for two years. Two years of my life and I have no idea what terrible things you made me do.”

Kuro looked between the two. This explained why Crawley had known so much about the forbidden curses, and why she seemed intimately familiar with the imperius curse. 

Phineas was far too calm for his situation. Something wasn’t right. “Dear Beatrice. It isn’t you that I put under the curse. I never had you under any spell. You assisted me of your own free will. I just kept your memories when we were finished.”

“Liar!” shouted Crawley. 

“Am I?” He crushed the seashell in his hand and whispering silver threads flowed from it toward Professor Crawley. They wove themselves through her eyes and nose. Her jaw went slack as the stolen memories returned to her all at once. 

“You can stop whatever it is you think you are doing right now, Phin.” McGonagall’s commanding voice.

Phineas turned to face McGonagall. “Oh professor, you remember me.” His voice was dripping with arrogance. “I’m flattered, but I must refuse. You see, I have the advantage. It’s three against one and I have two hostages.”

“What in the world are you talking about? Stand down.” Ordered Professor McGonagall.

“Sabine, please come down here!” shouted Phineas. “And Beatrice, would you kindly point that wand at my disloyal servant.”

Crawley rounded on Kuro and grabbed him firmly. She dragged him in front of her to face McGonagall and pointed her wand at his neck.

Sabine, on her broom, was slowly drifting downward. She was pointing her wand at Charlie. 

“You see,” said Phineas casually, “Ms. El-Asar is currently under my control, and my young assistant Beatrice has always been on my side, she just didn’t remember. Isn’t that right, Beatrice?”

“So it seems,” replied Beatrice.

“Drop your wand.” Ordered Phineas to McGonagall.

McGonagall looked between the two women she had brought as allies. Slowly she lowered her wand and let it clatter to the ground. “Just don’t hurt the children,” she pleaded.

“Oh, what a lovely day,” gloated Phineas. “I’ve my research and assistant restored and the Headmistress of Hogwarts on bended knee before me.”

He drew his own wand and continued to gloat, but Kuro had a hard time listening because something was speaking to him. Crawly had moved her wand up to his ear and it was whispering to him. “Kuro,” is hissed. “I need you to trust me. I’m going to do something. The moment I move, I need you to grab Charlie and run. Nod if you understand.”

Kuro didn’t understand much of what was going on, but he understood the instructions. He nodded and the whispering continued. “Three… two… one… go!”

Kuro burst forward with every bit of magic he could muster. A jet of blue light shot over his shoulder from Professor Crawley toward Sabine. Sabine reacted quickly to block the spell, but it hadn’t been aimed at her. The broom she was on dissolved beneath her. She and Charlie started to fall, but Kuro was quick enough to get under them, He opened his book bag and let Charlie tumble into it. He heard a clatter, a thump, and a cry of an angry Graeae. He hoped they were both okay, but he did not stop to check. He prepared to keep running, but Phineas spoke before he had the chance to get far. “Get back here,” he ordered.

Kuro skidded to a halt and shot back toward Phineas, but he ran straight past. He had to follow orders, but he only had to do what he was told, nothing more. He grabbed Phineas’ satchel on the way by, just to add some insult to his disobedience and dashed down the street. 

“Stop!” shouted Phineas. 

Kuro stopped breathing through his nose. He had stopped something. That was good enough. 

He bolted past McGonagall who was reclaiming her wand. He looked back to see that Sabine, too, had found her feet and was duelling with Crawley. 

Kuro continued to run. Spells flared behind him but he dared not look back again. He took to the roofs, leaping from balcony to awning to chimney. Nearby he heard the crack of a whip and saw Phineas Snap into existence on the next roof. He fired off a spell that blasted towards Kuro in a blaze of red. Kuro pointed his wand to the side and shouted “Wingardium leviosa.” It shot him clear of the spell and across the street onto the far roofs.

As he ran, he heard Charlie shouting from inside his bag. “What’s going on?”

“We’re running away!” replied Kuro between breaths. “Please hold on to Graeae.”

Another crack and phineas was ahead of him on the street, but this time his assault was interrupted by an angry charging mailbox which swallowed him whole. McGonagall had appeared on a nearby corner and was enchanting every object that wasn’t bolted down.

Kuro wondered if McGonagall knew that mailbox led to a sewer in Aberdeen, but he did not stop to ask. He kept running, the world was moving in slow motion around him. Phineas reappeared covered in sewage and tried to cast a spell at McGonagall but she deflected it with ease and fired back. In Kuro’s slowed down world it looked as though she was dancing an elegant ballet.

Another crack sounded nearby, now slow and drawn out to sound more like the boom of thunder. Sabine appeared in front of him, her eyes were glassy and unfocused now but she seemed no less intent on her purpose. She was blown sideways by a strong gust of wind before she could cast anything, though. Ms. Crawled staggered out of an alley after her and they began exchanging blinding bolts again. 

Kuro felt the incredible lightness that filled him in times of peril. His feet were carrying him so fast that their beating of the pavement had become a hum and there was a wind at his back pushing him forward and catching him when he fell. He dove through drainways, ran through buildings, over dinner tables and under bridges. He took every hidden route and path he could, but every time he shot down an alley to try to escape through a secret passage, Phineas would appear meters away and send him scurrying back into the street, dodging spells as he ran. 

His feet were carrying him to the only refuge he had left. He didn’t even know he was headed there until he ducked inside to dodge a spell which made a stone explode near his head. He was in his church. It was just as he had left it, burned out and gutted, with the spirits of several parishioners waiting for sermon in their pews. 

He clambered inside hoping to be able to hide before Phineas could see where he went. He did not make it to his hidden chamber, tough.

“Stand still you insolent weasel!” shouted Phineas.

Kuro’s feet ground to a halt. He tried to move, to think of a way around the order. He saw a rock, if he could just punish himself enough, he could disobey, but his body was refusing to reach for it. With all of his will, he fell to his knees and reached for the stone. It was going to be too slow.

“You are still useful to me as a corpse.” snarled Phineas. 

Kuro turned to see his master. He was no longer well assembled. He was filthy and bleeding. He looked haggard and out of breath. He limped in the doorway and levelled his wand at Kuro. Kuro glanced around, hoping for rescue, but there was no sign of Crawley or McGonagall. 

“They’re miles away. Sabine led them to Cardiff. They don’t know the Alley like we do. Now be a good boy and stay still.” He raised his wand and with incredible malice in his voice he shouted, “Avada Kedavra!”

Kuro shut his eyes and waited for the end. He felt cold. It was a cold that ran straight to the bone and numbed the mind, but it did not hurt. It was slightly peaceful. That was, until the screaming started.

“How dare you commit violence in my church!” cried Father John. 

Kuro opened his eyes. He was not dead, he was inside the ghostly priest. Kuro saw a green glow on Father John’s chest where the killing curse had landed. It was rapidly fading. Father John’s flaming skull was blazing brighter and brighter with righteous fury, filling the burned-out church with ghastly light. “How dare you assault one of my parish,” he screamed so loudly that Kuro’s ears were left ringing and he was unable to hear whatever words were coming out of Phineas’s mouth.

The other ghosts were rising from their pews. Their normally placid faces were twisting and turning monstrous with anger. “How dare you!” Father John screeched once more before charging. The ghost screamed so loud that Phineas dropped his wand and covered his ears. 

Father John passed straight through Phineas and the wizard staggered backwards, shocked by the cold. He shook off the feeling and reached for his wand, but another flew through him, and another and another. The entire parish was flying through Phineas again and again. He was staggering and shivering. He clutched his heart and fell to his knees. Still he tried to reach for his wand.

Kuro pulled out his own wand and pointed it at Phineas. He readied the rock in his other hand to punish himself for the transgression he was about to commit.

“Silence!” Phineas ordered through clenched teeth.

Kuro smiled at his old master, and let fly his spell without a word. The green bolt landed cleanly in Phineas’s face and he fell back, paralysed. 

Kuro felt his other arm moving. The rock came down hard on his face. His forehead split open, his nose cracked, and he spat blood. It was entirely worth it, he thought, and passed out.


	24. The Blue Bowler

Kuro woke not long later with a splitting headache. Sabine and a wizard he didn’t know were tending to him. Sabine looked battered and distressed, but glad when Kuro awoke. It seemed that the curse she’d been under had been broken. 

Kuro sat up and looked around. The church was busy with people. There were a dozen dangerous looking witches and wizards in long leather coats talking to each other. Aurors, Kuro guessed. Several of them held Phineas at wand-point. He was bound and gagged and his blue bowler had been placed back on his head. Ms. Crawley was standing separated from the others, looking very dark and unsettled. She was leafing through Phineas’ journal and scowling at what she saw. Father John was trying to calm the other spirits in the church without screaming too much, with mixed success. Professor McGonagall was there as well, looking a little unkempt, but apparently unharmed given how furiously she was arguing. 

The man she was engaged with was, of course, Harry Potter. He was attempting to wave her off dismissively and was failing completely, to the obvious amusement of some of his aurors. 

“You knew. You bloody well knew and you didn’t tell me,” scolded the Headmistress.

“I suspected, Minerva. It was only a suspicion,” soothed Potter. “I couldn’t be…”

“Don’t ‘Minerva’ me Harry Potter.” Her brow furrowed so deeply that Kuro thought her eyebrows would touch. “He could have died. You should know better than to keep secrets like this. You’re as bad as Albus.”

Something about that accusation struck a chord with the auror. “Look,” he said testily. “I thought it would be better if he didn’t have it hanging over his head.”

“And we would have been much better prepared to deal with it if we had known. I’ve half a mind to dock Gryffindor points for your poor judgement.” 

Potter winced at the threat. It seemed that house loyalty lasted well past graduation.

Kuro could have watched this all day. Seeing potter dismantled like a truant child was delightful. He wasn’t allowed to enjoy it for long, though. Sabine, who was helping him to sit up, cleared her throat politely to get the arguing pair’s attention and said “He’s awake.” 

McGonagall looked deeply relieved and she swept over to him. “Kuro, how are you feeling?” She doted over him, checking his wounds and looking so worried and maternal that he Kuro thought she might now be under the Imperius Curse. 

“I’m fine,” answered Kuro, though the splitting pain in his head said otherwise. It felt like his brains were going to leak out his nose.

“Kuro…” she paused and looked very apprehensive. “Do you know what happened to Charlie? We can’t find her. She disappeared at the beginning of the fight and...”

“She’s in my bag,” interrupted Kuro. He looked around for it and found that he was laying on top of it. He opened it up and yelled inside. “Hey Charlie, you okay?”

Charlie was sitting on the floor inside his bag, leaning against some shelves and petting Graeae. “Yeah, fine. Did we get away?” She shouted back. They didn’t need to shout, but there was something about the space inside the bag that made things seem farther away. 

“Yup. Everything is fine now, I think. Do you want to come out?” He laid the bag on its side and allowed Charlie to crawl out. 

McGonagall’s caring expression slid from her face. She did not look at all pleased. “Where did you get that?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” admitted Kuro, pulling it tight to his chest protectively. “I got it for Christmas. There was no name on the card.”

She turned away, her expression frozen in frustration. “Potter!” she bellowed.

“How did you?” Potter started before collecting himself. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You sent an eleven year old boy an illegal magical artifact for a Christmas present?” McGonagall had returned to her full Headmistressness and was scolding him harshly.

“It’s not illegal,” Potter defended. “It’s properly registered.”

“So you’re abusing your influence at the ministry, then?” 

Kuro looked at his bag, a little conflicted. Potter had given it to him? Why? Did it matter? It was one of the two things he owned that he really cared about. Having come from Potter kind of spoiled it. Even so, he hoped desperately that it wouldn’t be taken from him. 

“Look,” said Potter, attempting to stand up to McGonagall, “I just thought he might not have much of a Christmas, so I sent something along. I got something in my first year like that and it made all the difference in the world.”

“It nearly got you killed,” retorted McGonagall, “If you care to recall.”

They continued to bicker back and forth, but Charlie distracted Kuro from the show. She stood beside him, her eyes fixed on Phineas who was still being held in place by several aurors. “That’s him, isn’t?” she said a little distantly. 

Kuro nodded slightly. 

Charlie’s fists clenched and her eyes started to shine with moisture. She strode between the arguing adults so she could stand facing the bound wizard. She stood there staring for a few moments. She began to shake, whether out of rage or sorrow or both, Kuro couldn’t tell. Without warning she lunged forward and swung wildly with her clenched fist. She landed a solid hit right in his face before a pair of aurors grabbed her and dragged her away. “You stole my mother!” she screamed. 

Sabine ran to her and threw her arms around her. Letting Charlie sob into her shoulder.

“What was that about?” asked Potter, shocked by the display.

McGonagall got very close to Potter, forcing him to look her in the eye. “That is Charlotte Cook. Mr. Head of the Aurors. She is Helena Morris’ daughter.”

“Oh,” was all Potter could manage.

“Kuro’s best friend,”

“Oh,” repeated Potter looking very uncomfortable.

“Again, something we could have been prepared for if you weren’t keeping secrets from me.” McGonagall’s words were crisp and cutting.

Potter was rescued from further assault by one of the aurors. “Boss, why are we keeping Hearn here? Can we bring him to Azkaban, already?” said the grizzled and angry looking woman.

“Right, one moment please.” Potter broke away from McGonagall and walked through the rubble of the church to Phineas. “I need to try something.”

He hauled Phineas to his feet and brought him over to Kuro. “Phineas Hearn, give Kuro your hat,” Potter ordered.

Everyone stared at Potter like a madman. Everyone but Phineas, that is. He glared at Potter with utter loathing and resentment. He refused to move. 

“Do it,” growled Potter darkly and he tightened his grip on his wand.

Phineas brought his bound hands to his head, took his blue bowler hat off and thrust it toward Kuro. Kuro did not know what to do. He just looked between the odd blue hat, Potter, and Phineas in confusion. “Take it,” Potter said.

Kuro reached out and took hold of the rim of the hat. Phineas refused to release it at first but Potter raised his wand and one eyebrow and Phineas relented, muttering what sounded like foul curses from behind his gag. 

Kuro felt something strange happening within him. It was like chains were uncoiling from around his bones, like a steel cage was falling away from around his heart. A great constricting force that he had never known was there until that moment lifted from his chest and a strangling invisible collar fell away from his neck. He breathed a full, deep breath and felt… free. 

“What is your master’s name?” asked Potter with a sly grin. 

Kuro waited for the familiar sensation, the crushing need to stay silent, the compulsion to be punished if he didn’t. It wasn’t there. “Phineas Hearn,” he said in wonder. “His name is Phineas Hearn,” he repeated. There was nothing. The feeling was gone completely. It was just a name like any other. 

Potter crossed his arms in satisfaction. “You can take him away now. That’s all I needed” He waved to the aurors to go. 

“Wait,” said Kuro Urgently before the aurors could leave. He looked Phineas square in the eye. “No, that’s not true.” said Kuro “I have no master.”

Phineas glared murderously at Kuro as the aurors dragged him off, out of the church. 

“What just happened, Mr. Potter?” Demanded Professor McGonagall crossly. 

“Like I said, Kuro was cursed. I had a suspicion as to the nature of Kuro’s curse.” Potter explained. “Just a suspicion,” he added defensively. “He behaved like a house elf when disobeying orders. House elves are freed when their master presents them with clothes. I noticed when I gave him robes, it was like he’d never been given anything in his life. I just put the pieces together.”

“Couldn’t you have put them together a little sooner?” complained McGonagall. “Or did you need to keep it to yourself in case you could ever use it to your advantage?”

“I thought he would be safe at Hogwarts,” said Potter accusingly.

“I thought Azkaban was inescapable,” countered McGonagall.

“Please stop fighting in front of the children,” interrupted Sabine sweetly. “They have had a very difficult day.”

McGonagall and Potter separated reluctantly. 

“How is it that Kuro has an elven curse on him?” queried McGonagall. “That is lost magic of the ancient elves. It only exists as it is passed on from parent to child in house elves.” 

“I can answer that.” Ms. Crawley had remained silent and unnoticed until now. She closed Phineas’ journal and walked over to where Kuro was sitting. She knelt down and spoke directly to Kuro, where the others had only spoken to each other. “You’re a half-elf Kuro,” she said. Her eyes were full of deep sadness and Kuro had a hard time looking into them.

“That’s impossible,” said McGonagall, though she didn’t sound as certain as she usually did. “Wizards have been trying to interbreed with elves for millennia. It has never worked.”

Ms. Crawley responded to McGonagall, but didn’t look away from Kuro. “We used muggle technology. They’ve invented something called genetic engineering. It took years of trying to mix that technology with magic to create a living half-elf. Kuro here was our only success. None of the others survived incubation.”

It was true. Phineas hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Kuro was just an experiment. “Why did you do it?” asked Kuro. 

Ms. Crawley sighed very deeply before continuing. “House elves are perfect servants, but they are weak, cowardly and strange looking. We wanted to create soldiers. Unwaveringly loyal, powerfully magical, and easily disguised. A perfectly created half-elf could have all of the strengths of an elf and a wizard. If we were successful, we could make as many as we wanted. We could have built an army.”

“You are saying ‘we’ a lot,” said Potter suspiciously. 

“Yes,” Ms. Crawley responded, not turning away from Kuro. “I helped. I was one of the ones on the team. It was Phineas, Roche, and I. I had believed that I was under the imperius curse. All I remembered of those two years were hazy dreams. It seems the truth was that they had stolen my memories. They were returned this afternoon.”

“If you were on Phineas’ side, why did you help me today?” asked Kuro.

“Because, Kuro,” Ms. Crawley smiled softly. “I have had twelve years to become better person. I made some very bad choices when I was young. I don’t think it was their intention, but they gave me another chance at doing better when they took my memories. He thought I would join him again once I remembered. I almost did. But I have spent the last decade learning to fight against people like Hearn. I’ve taught aurors to catch them. I’ve taught students to defend themselves from them. I am not the person he thought he knew.”

“Are you going to have to go to Azkaban?” asked Kuro quietly. 

“Probably, yes.” answered Crawley as she brushed some of kuro’s hair out of his face.

“So you’re not coming back to teach next year?”

“I’m sorry, no.” she said very sadly.

McGonagall let out an exasperated sigh in response.

“So…” Kuro’s mind was turning over ideas slowly. It was still several steps behind in the conversation. “If you helped create me, does that make you my mother?” He wasn’t sure why he asked it. There was just a small part of him that thought it wouldn’t be so bad if he had one, and that she wouldn’t be the worst option. 

She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Kuro had never been hugged like that before. He didn’t really know what to do. He felt glad and sad at the same time and tears started flowing freely from his eyes though he wasn’t crying. 

“No, Kuro,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m no more your mother that Phineas was your father. I’ve no right to be, either. I did terrible things, Kuro. But at least one good thing came of my mistakes. I’m very proud of who you have become. You’re already a better person than I’ve ever been.” She released him and held him at arm's length as if to appraise him and nodded approvingly. 

“Will I ever see you again?” Asked Kuro. 

“I hope so,” said Crawley with a sad smile. She turned away from Kuro to face Potter. Her sad soft eyes turned hard and her face stiffened with resolve. “Here,” she said, handing him Phineas’ journal. “This should explain a great deal. I recommend destroying it. I’m ready to go when you are.”

“Thank you, Beatrice.” Potter looked conflicted. “You’re a very talented witch, he said. If you apparated now, I’m not sure I’d be able to track you down.” 

She did not act on Potter’s suggestion. Instead, she took her wand from her robes and handed it over. “I expect you will be needing to confiscate this.”

“Yes, I suppose I will,” said Potter, accepting it reluctantly. “I’ll keep it safe for you. I promise.” Potter turned to McGonagall “Will you be alright bringing the children back on your own? I could provide an escort.

“Thank you Harry, but we will be fine,” said McGonagall. Her voice finally friendly towards the auror. “Sabine, would you be able to take Miss Cook home to her father? I think she may need to spend a few days with her family. I will be along shortly to explain what has happened.” 

Charlie and Kuro hugged before they left, and Kuro returned her locket. “Thanks for coming to save me,” he said.

“Anytime,” she answered and they hugged again. “I’ll see you soon. Don’t have any fun without me.”

Father John screeched his farewells, too, and wished Kuro well. Kuro promised to visit whenever he could, and this seemed to please the tortured spirit very much.

After they had said their goodbyes, McGonagall approached him. “Take my arm Kuro,” she said. “And hold on tight.”

He held on to her arm with and she placed a hand tightly on top of his so that he couldn’t have let go if he wanted to. “Have you ever been apparated, Kuro?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered.

“I should warn you that it can be uncomfortable. But we’ll be back at Hogwarts in a snap.” 

Professor McGonagall Closed her eyes and looked to be concentrating. Then, without warning, she disappeared into a pinpoint of darkness and Kuro was sucked in along with her. He was enveloped by a soft blackness and surrounded by a sense of both incredible speed and impenetrable stillness. He couldn’t see or hear and it did not seem that he had a body. He was just a haze of ideas passing between points of existence. 

As quickly as it had started, it was over. He was standing on the Hogwarts grounds, the main doors less than a hundred yards away. He stretched and shook out his limbs. It felt like we was waking from a nap. 

“How do you feel?” asked the Headmistress as she released his hand. 

“Good,” replied Kuro. “That was nice.”

“Curious, very curious,” muttered McGonagall to herself. She looked about to say something more but stopped to listen. “What is that noise?” she asked, looking at Kuro’s book bag.

Kuro looked inside. Graeae was yowling mournfully. He oriented his bag so he could reach her, and gently lifted her out with one hand. She seemed fine but quite disoriented. “I don’t think she liked that much.” Kuro said, rubbing her head to try to calm her.

McGonagall scratched Graeae apologetically. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in there,” she said softly to the cat. 

Kuro looked at warm gentle face of the tyrant he thought he knew. He wondered how many other students had been allowed to see her like this: disheveled, warm, and smiling. He suspected it was very few, for a moment later she tapped her wand to her forehead and her appearance reverted back to the McGonagall he knew. Hey grey-streaked black hair returned itself to a tight bun, her robes righted and mended themselves, and a wide-brimmed green hat appeared in a puff of glittering smoke and settled on her head. She did the same to Kuro and his very dirty and tattered robes mended and cleaned themselves. 

“That should save us some questions.” said the renewed McGonagall in a businesslike tone. “I shall take you to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey should see to your wounds and I suspect a quiet night’s sleep would do you some good.”

They didn’t receive a single suspicious look on the way to the infirmary. Nobody they passed seemed to have even noticed them missing. Madam Pomfrey took him in and fed him a potion that made him very sleepy. 

He fought it for a little while. His head was racing with the day’s events, but he had been exhausted before the potion and its encouragement to sleep was more than he could contend with. The last thing he felt as he drifted off to sleep was the felt brim of the blue bowler hat still held tightly in his left hand. It was real, he thought. He was free.


	25. The House Cup

Kuro stayed in the hospital wing the next day. He was well enough to leave, but he wasn’t ready to face a full day of class, or face whomever they had enlisted to replace Ms. Crawley.

He refused to explain what had happened to Edward or Mary until Charlie had returned. He gave the reason that Charlie would tell it better than him, which was true. He also felt that there were parts of the story that were Charlie’s to tell and that he didn’t have the right to give them away.

Kuro was proven right in waiting for Charlie. She returned that weekend filled with her usual zeal. Her recounting of the story required her to leap between tables and swing from chandeliers. She also spent considerably less time at the bottom of a book bag in her version and Kuro was substantially better at spells in it. Kuro decided her version was by far superior to the actual events. 

Edward was thrilled by the story and oddly happy that Kuro was a half-elf. He liked that he wasn’t the only one with weird blood. Mary was reluctant to get caught up in the excitement of it and said that wizards were all completely mad. She insisted that it wasn’t normal to have your counselor cursed or your headmistress get into duels in the streets. Despite that, she was the first to demand more whenever Charlie included a dramatic pause in her telling. 

Before they knew it, they were back to classes as though nothing had happened. Exams were fast approaching, introducing Kuro to a new form of misery. He had never had to study for anything in his life and he was having a hard time convincing himself to use his newfound freedom to spend hours staring at books in a study hall. Mary, however, had no intention of letting him fail and dragged him and a similarly unfocused Charlie through their work. “I don’t want to have to go about making new friends next year if the lot of you fail,” she explained.

Edward and Kuro celebrated their mutual liberation together. Edward could be himself, whomever that happened to be in the moment, and Kuro no longer had to obey the orders of a master he loathed. Despite their best efforts, this did not make either of them less awkward or better at looking people in the eye when speaking to them.

Kuro had taken to wearing the blue bowler much of the time. He couldn’t explain exactly why he did to anyone else. He expected that the elves would understand better than the people. It was the symbol of his freedom. It was what had released him from bondage to a terrible master and he couldn’t help but display it proudly. It was too big for him and sat foolishly on his head, the brim resting on his oversized ears, but he didn’t care. 

Kuro’s heart ached every time they had to go to Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Longbottom had replaced Ms. Crawley for the remainder of the term. He was surprisingly capable and knowledgeable, though a room full of students waving wands seemed to make him very nervous. Kuro couldn’t help but think about Ms. Crawley languishing in a cell in Azkaban while in her old classroom. He wished that she had run when Potter had given her the chance and hoped that she was being treated well.

Exam time came, along with cruelly glorious summer weather. It was intolerable to sit inside writing tests and demonstrating spells when the sun was so bright and the leaves were so green. It took all of his resolve for Kuro not to just flee from every exam and frolic in the sunshine, but with great restraint and threats from Mary that she would tie him to his chair, he managed to make it through all of them.

The final day of school came faster than Kuro wished. He would have been happy if those last months could have gone on forever. Kuro was surprised to discover, in the end, that he had only failed a single subject, transfiguration. He would be repeating it next year, but that wasn’t so bad, he thought. He might be ahead of the class this time. Also, it reminded him that he would actually be coming back next year, a thought that he couldn’t have imagined himself being happy about eight months prior.

He did have a victory to celebrate when they received their final grades. Though it had nothing to do with his own marks. Evelyn had finished top of their year in every subject except two, Potions and Flying. Edward had received top marks in Potions, a fact which he felt extremely guilty about, given that Kuro was solidly at the bottom. It was Charlie that had beaten out Evelyn in flying. Rumor was that when Evelyn did her final test, she couldn’t pull the sharp corners of the obstacle course and ended up in a hedge. Kuro wished he could have been there to see it.

The house cup was announced at the end of term feast, the day before the train back to platform nine and three-quarters. The hourglasses showing the house points had been hidden at the beginning of exams to create a bit of suspense for the end of term. McGonagall stood at her lectern at the front of the hall to give the farewell address and announce the winners before the feast.

“I would first like to congratulate everyone on completing another year here at Hogwarts, and wish you a safe summer. I look forward to seeing those of you who are returning in the fall, and I shall sorely miss those of you who are moving on the bigger and better things beyond our walls. It is always bittersweet to see our graduates pass through our gates for the final time.” McGonagall was stoic and scripted, but Kuro thought he detected a quaver in her voice betraying a hint of sincerity.

“I suspect, though,” she continued, “That none of you is interested in my reminiscing. The final scores for the year have been tallied. I don’t believe any of you will be surprised to hear that they are the lowest on record.” There was a despondent grumble through the assembled students. “However, I am very proud of the efforts you have made since January, working together to redeem yourselves and your houses and I think we can all agree that the past few months have seen some of the finest in memory. I am also pleased to say that there has been something of an upset to the order that has been established these past few years in the placing of the houses. Without further ado, I would like to award the house cup...” She waved her wand across the hall and great banners unfurled emblazoned with the crest of the winning house as the curtain hiding the hourglasses fell away. “To Gryffindor!” 

The Gryffindor tabled burst with cheers and applause but they were entirely drowned out by the explosion of celebration from the Hufflepuff table. Hufflepuff had finished second, a mere ten points behind Gryffindor. They had finished dead last for the past five years and hadn’t beaten out ravenclaw in living memory. The outpouring of joy from the Hufflepuffs silenced the winning table and lasted well into the feast. It was the happiest any house had ever been at earning second place. Theodore, the Head Boy, actually hugged Kuro repeating over and over “Never thought I’d see the day, Never.”

The train ride back to platform nine and three-quarters the next day was bittersweet. Charlie, Edward, and Mary were all happy to be seeing their families again, but none were happy to be leaving each other behind. Kuro had a growing sense of apprehension about leaving Hogwarts. It felt like home now, and a part of him feared that if he left, it wouldn’t be there when he came back. He watched it fade into the distance behind them until it was completely out of sight. 

All four promised to try to visit each other, but none knew if they would be able to. They weren’t even certain they could write to each other. Charlie and Edward could exchange owls, but Mary informed them that they would have to use ordinary post if they wanted to send letters. She also tried to explain about computers and email, but nobody else quite understood. Kuro didn’t even know where to tell them to send letters yet, but took all of their addresses. 

As they disembarked, Kuro was quickly abandoned. All of the others ran to meet their waiting families. Mary’s parents stuck out rather badly, they were dressed like very ordinary muggles and looked lost and bewildered by the madness around them. Her mother held a cross on her neck very tightly, in the same way Mary did when she was frightened. They collected their daughter and made a very rapid escape, slipping between two pillars toward the the Liverpool Exit.

Edward was greeted by an elderly couple Kuro expected were his grandparents. His hair turned vibrant blue when he saw them and he ran happily to meet them. He waved brightly to Kuro before smoothing his hair and face into his human disguise and they backed through a turnstile towards Manchester station.

Charlie pulled her father over to meet Kuro before they left. He was a broad strong man who wore dirty work boots and well worn jeans. He smiled at Kuro and extended a hand, but his eyes were very sad. Kuro thought that he must know who Kuro was, and what had happened to his wife because of him. Kuro accepted the handshake and said “pleased to meet you” as apologetically as he could. 

Charlie noticed none of this and began recounting the last couple of months to her father the as soon as the handshake broke. Kuro started missing her the moment she turned away. He watched her illustrate her tale by waving Mr. Toadsworth around like a puppet and he could hear her voice right up until they walked through the wall to their home station.

Then he was alone again on the platform. The other children of the orphanage were still saying goodbyes to friends or waiting for Meredith, who had taken it upon herself to speak to every parent of every first year Hufflepuff. 

Also standing alone alone on the platform was a familiar old man in a tweed suit. It was Potter wearing the disguise he had used to drop Kuro off. He beckoned Kuro over to him. 

“Potter?” Kuro asked accusingly when he was close enough to speak to him. “What are you doing here?”

Potter smiled beneath his bushy moustache. “Just keeping an eye on you.”

“Still?” complained Kuro. “Aren’t I free now? Am I still on parole?”

Potter sighed heavily and put a hand on Kuro’s shoulder. “Look, you were never a prisoner. I’ve been trying to protect you.”

“Didn’t work very well did it?” Kuro scowled at the auror.

“No, it didn’t.” Potter admitted. “Look, I’m used to keeping secrets. It’s part of my job. It’s also something of a bad habit, if you ask my wife.”

“Or McGonagall,” added Kuro.

Potter tensed like he was going to defend himself, but he let it go. “Fair point,” he conceded. “But when I was young, people kept a lot of things from me thinking it would protect me. It didn’t do me any good at all. The point is, there are some more things you should know. When we returned Phineas to Azkaban, he was still in his cell. Somebody had transfigured a muggle to look like him and swapped them.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Kuro suspiciously.

“Because it means you still might not be safe,” Potter explained. “It means that someone helped Phineas. Somebody with access to Azkaban. Somebody inside the ministry. Also, Beatrice told us that Claudius Roche was working with them and we’ve never caught him. I don’t think he’ll come after you again, but, well, we have people keeping an eye out anyway.”

“Where is Ms. Crawley?” interrupted Kuro. “Is she okay?”

Potter smiled weakly. “She’s under house arrest. She’s being very helpful in our investigations and her record is very good, but…” Potter sighed. “My authority only goes so far. She’ll have to stand trial. I’ll do all I can for her. I promise.”

Kuro nodded sadly. 

“I believe your fellows are calling for you.” said potter. “Good luck. And take care of yourself. And, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, don’t do anything reckless.”

He started to walk away when a thought occurred to him. “Potter,” he said turning back to face the auror. “Phineas said something to me. I don’t quite understand it. He said that the inmates were running the asylum. Do you know what that means?”

Potter’s face grew very dark and his eyes became narrow slits. He looked to be thinking very unpleasant thoughts. “No. I don’t know what he means, but I have a suspicion. Thank you for telling me.”

Kuro left Potter and joined the six other orphans. Meredith and Bella were the oldest and they led them out through the brick wall to Kings Cross station in London. They pushed through the crowds of muggles, getting very odd looks from all sides for their trolleys filled with trunks and caged owls. They caught an ordinary train out of the city to Guildford, then a bus to the edge of town where a huge, imposing structure stood alone at the end of a cracked and litter-filled street. 

The property was surrounded by a high concrete wall covered in graffiti and topped with barbed wire. The front doors were heavy iron and looked to have a dozen locks. There was an old Ford Prefect automobile rusting and rotting outside in the untended grass and a thick, wild, thorny hedge surrounded the base of the wall. Above the door in rusting iron letters hung a sign that read “St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys.”

To Kuro’s baffled astonishment, the other children ran happily to the door of the terrifying prison and pulled their things inside. Kuro followed, feeling a little numb and much less hopeful for his coming summer months. 

He stepped through the door and out into another world. Inside, the walls were bright white stone and barbed wire free. The grounds were filled with well tended gardens and old trees. Several small cottages surrounded a central manor where a kind-looking matron stood waiting to greet the returning students. 

Meredith was immediately set upon by several small children, the oldest of which couldn’t have been more than six. She laughed and picked them all up in one arm, hugging them so tightly they looked like they might pop. Another girl not much younger than Kuro, ran to greet Bella. They looked very similar, and Kuro guessed them to be sisters. Bella showed off her scarred eye to the girl proudly.

Right in the center of it all, surrounded by a small pond filled with purple fish was a statue or a wizard. It was tall and bronze. On its base was a metal plaque that read “In recognition of our founder and key sponsor, this statue is dedicated to Harry Potter.” 

  
Kuro stared at the statue. “Potter,” he grumbled. “Why is it always Potter?”  At least, he thought, he would have something to practice his transfiguration on over the summer.


End file.
